If you want to learn to

 live in a house efficiently then live on a boat for five years...so says a shipmate.

He's right only it doesn't take five years. 

Life on a boat is a disciplined life in order for it to work. You have to set priorities and be willing to get keep things orderly and not collect a whole lot of junk simply because there isn't any room for it.

You have to plan just about everything, from water, fuel, and energy use to meals to when to do laundry. You have to be disciplined.

Storage has to be managed as there is limited storage and life gets down to what you can use. There's no real room for anything else. You have to go through your clothes periodically and get rid of what you don't wear.

Energy management is also a part of it, especially in the summer or winter. You are constantly checking kerosene or propane tanks and making sure that anything not being used at the time is turned off.

Shopping becomes more efficient because if you forget something you are likely out of luck. When you come ashore this ends up saving on fuel because it is a habit and you don't wind up running to the store ever day.

This hold especially true when you are underway. There are no stores out in the middle of the ocean. If you get sloppy and run out of something...anything...while underway you might as well forget about getting a resupply until you are tied up somewhere civilized.

Every drop of water is supplied from shore except for maybe, if you have the mechanism to do this, rain water. After a couple of years on a boat water discipline becomes second nature. When you move ashore you don't let the water run when you brush your teeth.

You also combine loads when you wash clothes and very well may use a clothes line. A cloths line is a solar and wind powered clothes dryer and works like a charm.

The list of things is really almost endless and you bring ashore habits you don't even realize to make life efficient.

Remote ranchers and others that have stores a distance away tend to have a few of these habits but the truth is they don't hold a candle to what a couple of years in a baot will do to someone.

It changes you and makes you efficient.



To find out why the blog is pink just cut and paste this: http://piccoloshash.blogspot.com/2009/12/my-feminine-side-blog-stays-pink.html NO ANIMALS WERE HARMED IN THE WRITING OF TODAY'S ESSAY