Our water tanks are full. We feel rich with all of the fresh water aboard.

It was satisfying to turn on the meters after a night of rain and see a full water tank indicated. We have in the past relied upon marina water from municipal water systems or our onboard water-maker to fill our boat's water tanks.

We have not been at a marina or dockside anywhere since September 3, 2016 when we departed Scarborough Marina in Australia. In remote places, like where we are now in Manakal, Palau, local people rely on harvesting rain from their roofs into big tanks. More than once locals have kindly allowed us to carry rain water in jerry jugs by dingy back to the boat. We did so in Ghizo in the Solomon Islands once and have done so in Palau.

Drought conditions occur in Islands in this part of the world. It did in Ghizo and also Palau. Last year Palau had a severe drought and had to import drinking water. Much of the lush foliage on the rock islands turned brown and some plants died. Koror had tried to draw on water from usually unused municipal wells to see them through the drought only to discover the water from the wells was contaminated. At the present times new municipal water system, a gift from the people of Japan, is being installed in Koror. The streets have been torn up to install the new water mains during our time in Palau. Even municipal water supplies can run low in times of drought as my wise Aussie friends know. It is good to manage and conserve fresh water what ever the source.

Our good friend, Lee Youngblood, noted that it has only rained twice in Seattle this winter, once for 30 days and again for 45 days. Jokes aside, Seattle and other West Coast US communities rely heavily on snow melt from the mountains into lakes for municipal water. Due to warming conditions less precipitation falls as snow in the region and the smaller snowpack melts sooner in the year leading to water supply difficulties later in the year. There is conflict between thirsty cities, farmers who irrigate crops and society's commitment to leave enough water in the streams for the annual spawning salmon runs and other ecosystem needs. Water conservation is important even in regions of temperate rainforests.

Our two 5-gallon water jugs weigh 40 pounds each full. It is a bit of work rowing ashore for water, walking to the sometimes distant water source, carrying the full jugs back to the dingy, hoisting them aboard and pouring them into the opening on the deck. We have a big dedicated funnel for transferring water from the jerry jugs into the water tank fill. Our onboard tanks hold 100 gallons so it would take a bit of time and effort to fill them by jerry jug if we needed to do so.

Water-makers are notoriously fussy and prone to failure, though ours has worked faithfully most of the time since we installed many years ago. We have friends whose water-maker died in a remote location. They had to take their boat to a very rough cement dock that was designed for big ships under adverse wind conditions to fill their onboard water tanks. At times they ran very low on water aboard. Friends here in Palau have been struggling to repair their water-maker for months before leaving on their next passage. They are almost to a decision to buy a new water-maker.

We did not even own jerry jugs for water until cruising in the Solomon Islands. I have always squirreled away emergency drinking water in bottles sowed in obscure spaces on the boat. Because the anticipated need to stretch our fuel and water supplies I wanted to carry extra water on our long passage from Papua New Guinea to Palau. We expected extended light air traveling conditions and an adverse current much of the straight line 1100 miles of the trip. In fact we knew we would not travel in a straight line for lots of reasons. We knew right off the bat we would have to motor north through calm conditions to find winds. The calm squally Intertropical Convergence Zone near the equator is wide in the Western Pacific especially in early winter. We carry enough diesel to motor around 600 nautical miles.

Our onboard reverse-osmosis water-maker depends on electricity and diesel fuel to generate the electricity to force sea water through a very fine filter or membrane with a high pressure pump to make fresh water. We don't run it if there is much in the way of particles in the water around the boat which would prematurely clog the prefilters and the membrane. Water-maker membranes have to be changed from time to time and are expensive, They would cost in the neighborhood of $800 if we bought them from the manufacturer of our water-maker. In remote places the membranes simply are not available. Shipping is slow and expensive. Storing lots of 40-inch-long membranes aboard a 36-foot sailboat is also difficult due to limited space.

The water-maker is an electricity hog. We usually run the engine while we make water which in areas with abundant cheap diesel fuel is not a problem. Our water-maker produces around 15 gallons an hour. We are often cruising in areas where diesel fuel is not available and others where it is expensive, contaminated and has to be transported to the boat by dingy in jerry jugs.

We though long and hard about modifying our big sunshade to harvest drinking water. Many cruising sailboats do so. In fact it is not unusual for boats to also harvest water from their decks. They simply make a dam around their water tank fill and let it run off the decks directly into their water tanks. I don't even want to think about drinking water from a walking surface. We and others walk ashore on surfaces that are sometimes appallingly filthy with substances that I will kindly leave to the reader's imagination. We catch rain water from the sunshade for laundry and other non-potable uses. The trouble with the sunshade is that it is always up and usually has splotches of bird poo on it. The sunshade is big and hard to clean as it is made of Sunbrella fabric. Also the sunshade also serves As a big umbrella to allow us to use the cockpit and coachroof as a cooler living space. The shape needs to be a bowl to harvest water not the current tent shape.

So, after too much waffling about why we made a rain harvester here is how it works.

We bought a 10-foot length of snowy white vinyl that will be easy to inspect and clean. We cut it to fit onthe foredeck and hemmed the edges. Grommets were installed along the hemmed edges and a slot was sewn into each end for a pvc pipe to be used for support if necessary. Lengths of shock cord were threaded through the grommets on the long sides to make it more of a bowl shape. A drain fitting was installed in the middle to a 15-foot length of hose that runs to the water tank. The fitting from the hose to the water tank fill prevents dirty deck water from entering our drinking water tanks. Another shock cord holds the drain down even if there is wind along with the rain as is often the case. There is room
to walk on the foredeck beside the water catcher. I often use that space to rig a clothesline. The rain catcher clips on so is easy to put up and take down. It folds up for easy stowage when not in use.

A side benefit is that the rain catcher shelters the hatch over our berth so we can leave it open in the rain unless there is also a lot wind. We have not done so yet but the rain catcher is designed to be deployed high enough to shade a hammock hung between the mast and forestay.

Even though our boat has a lot of high tech systems we like having low tech very simple backup methods for those that are essential. When visiting ashore at home, we are enchanted by the wonderful water systems. It is magic to simply turn a handle to get all the clean drinking water you want! Life is different on a cruising sailboat in more than the obvious ways.

Hurrah! It is raining again, just in time to replace the wee bit of water we used to wash breakfast dishes.

Note to readers who imagine cruising on a sailboat in remote places is a glamorous full-time holiday, it is often a lot of hard mundane work. The other times make the extra work worth it.