Saturday, December 6, 2008

Making Coffee

Kristen here - It's Saturday night December 6th. This morning we actually had propane! YAY! To celebrate I decided to make coffee. After locating my stovetop percolator, I realized the last person who used it (I blame Bob L.!) never washed it out. While contemplating the brown jellylike substance at the bottom of the pot, I decided to push forward and wash the percolator. At this time I remembered that fresh water is scarce and I would have to wash with salt water and only use the fresh to rinse. I also realized that I would have to wash the rest of the three day old dishes that had piled up in the sink. Off I go! Now It's not like at home. We have a one foot pump and faucet for saltwater, and another foot pump and faucet for fresh. Pump, pump, pump...hmm the pump is stuck. That means the saltwater thru hull is closed. I seem to recall it was under the sink. Now to access this you have to lie on the floor and wrench your head and hand under the sink. Darn, it's not there. That was the sink drain thru hull. Time to trace the saltwater pump system from the pump to wherever it comes in from outside the boat. It's been about 15 minutes now since starting this amazing coffee adventure, but I'm still committed!

After some hose tracing, I find a closed thru hull. Most of our thru hulls are labeled, but this one isn't. I open it and pray. Back to the foot pump. Success! I have salt water. While washing the dishes I realize that our dish soap isn't Joy. Apparently for some strange reason, only Joy will suds up in saltwater. Anyhow, I wash in saltwater, transfer to the second sink (we have a split sink), rinse in fresh, and transfer back to the first sink to dry. Phew! Now finally I can start my coffee...

Coffee is now heating up. Time do something while it percolates. Ah, it must be done by now. Oh? What's this? The burner went out? Turns out the propane was shut off at the tank. This better be some really good coffee! By now I'm also contemplating adding some extra *seasoning* to my coffee.

Back on with the propane, thanks to Bob for turning it on for me! Burner on, and coffee success! Now if only our milk wasn't frozen solid. But that's a whole 'nuther story.

2 comments:

Jaye said...

HI! Fun meeting you all on Friday - check out the photo on sailnet. A caveat - it's great to get into water conservation mode but don't use Back Creek water (or generally, any harbor water) for dishwashing - way too much chance of contamination (are you sure, really really sure, that the boat upstream from you isn't pumping overboard, or has a diesel leak?)

Chris said...

Thanks for telling us! I mentioned it to Kristen as she was washing the dishes using water from Back Creek :)