Water, Water Everywhere

(Bob:) On the umpteenth day of our crossing of the Pacific (seven days to Hawaii, eleven days to Japan, not counting the tragedy of the skipped day described below), one becomes acutely aware of the immense size of the Pacific. One professor onboard said all the continents would fit into it, with some water left over. We have traveled 24 hours a day at about 17 mph on and on and on. The water in most places is 16,000 to 18,000 feet deep and has been uniformly about 70 to72 degrees most of the time. We have only seen a couple of ships (of course Luana and I sleep 22 hours a day so our viewing time is limited.), a few birds and some flying fish.

Now I know there are many of you reading this blog thinking, “I wonder what’s on TV right now, but there might be a few of you thinking “It’s too bad we can’t do something useful with all that water.” (Fish don’t think that.) Well we can, Ancient Mariners. Unlike the line from “The Ancient Mariner,” it turns out there are plenty of drops to drink. This ship, like all modern cruise ships, desalinates ocean water to get its water supply. The ship can purify up to 150,000 gallons a day, using both a sand filter and reverse osmosis (like synchronized swimming) through several other filters. It costs $600 to $700 in fuel oil a day to run the desalination plant.

While at sea, we on board use only about 50,000 gallons, mostly for showers. Only about 500 gallons is used by the ultra-low-flow, vacuum-powered toilets. (Flush that at the wrong time and you’re singing tenor for the rest of the cruise, matey.)

A problem occurs in port, since they can’t desalinate water there since it’s usually too polluted. So the ship stocks up our storage tanks prior to port. Also, in-port usage drops way down since guys would rather run ashore and pee on trees than risk these toilets. The ship also can’t send out its “used” water in port -- only at least 12 miles at sea. So no laundry gets done in port. (Laundry is $3 or $6 a bag for those who want to know, with the cost difference coming for stuff that gets ironed.) Fortunately, for Luana, she is washing her unmentionables by hand. Oops, I wasn’t supposed to mention that.

For those of you concerned about the environment, the ship does not send toilet water directly into the sea, although it does do so with laundry and shower water. The systems have separate drainage piping, so the toilet water gets treated to remove the “solids.”

This, of course, is an excellent time to return to my previous mention of the poop deck in an early blog. In fact, it’s the deck at the rear of a sailing ship above the large cabin that usually housed the captain. The phase was coined by the famous French mariner, Capitan LePoop.

Luana says I now have to eat in the room for 2 weeks, and no more potty humor in the blog. Life just isn’t fair.