Showers, Ships and Sailing

It's Shower Day. I've often read that line in other sailing blogs and have wondered, really? What's the big deal? As it turns out this is a real phenomenon out at sea. Showering on a moving sailboat is not easy and quite honestly there is no real motivation to bathe daily.

If you are sailing hot water can be a luxury, if you are motoring it means the wind or the seas are not agreeable. It takes a perfect combination of hot water, sea state and stench to get all crew members into clean clothes and clean bodies. Today was the day! Yes, we all feel better.

We are closing in on mainland Europe, with that comes shipping lanes. We have Automatic Identification System (AIS) on board. Our chart plotter shows a little red triangle for every boat or ship out here that has the same system. It is required by international law for all commercial vessels. Typically on this journey we would see one maybe two a night. Currently on my screen there are 32. They no longer carry names like Rhumb Line, Sophie or Blue Moon, now they are Costa Rican Star, Grande Tema and Zim Qingdao. These ships are bigger than football fields, traveling at 12-14 knots and passing each other within a half a mile. All I can say is freighters, tankers and cargo ships oh my! Gratefully none have come closer than 5 miles to us, let's hope that trend continues.

At this point we are approximately 36 hours away from our destination. We have some of the best sailing conditions of the entire trip. We are on a beam reach, which I am told is a sailors favorite point of sail, scooting along at 6+ knots. We are comfortable, excited and looking forward to "land ho"!