Toilet or not toilet
17 May 2019
Paul Barker | Warm and sunny
After a night tied up to the dockside, I got out the cleaning gear, I started at the bow then worked my way back down the port side polishing the stainless steel Stanton's, I did this for about 3 hours. Then I had a walk around the town with the old crew mate (Stan) who gave me the low down on the skipper, he told me that he wanted to leave the boat during his first week aboard and to be careful with him. Later in the day we moved into the bay and dropped the anchor, the wind was getting up and pushing the boat ⛵️towards the stone dockside, but in my opinion in no danger of hitting, in the last 24 hours we have had to reset the anchor 3 times because we (according to the skipper) were dragging it with the boat ⛵️(none of the other boats were doing this), which bothered me slightly. It's at this point that I understood what Stan was talking about, Joe is very conscious about his boat (rightly so) but he is now talking about taking watches through the nights just in case someone drifts or sails their boat into us.
His water consumption is very extreme he thinks that anyone can shower 🚿 or wash their entire body in 1.5 litres of water, he gave me a bottle for this purpose which I promptly lost somewhere in the cabin, he listed his food 🥘 supplies and all it basically consisted of is pasta, pasta, sauces, more pasta, beans, cereal and some fresh fruit and veg, oh and pasta, when I questioned him about these two things he became very defensive and almost invited me to leave. He says he likes me and my attitude but I'm not too sure about him.
In the morning I set about more boat polishing (it's very therapeutic when the sun is shining) before I arrived the skipper had his new €500 folding bike stolen off of the boat, (it wasn't secured) because of this he has gone overboard with his security, he won't leave the dinghy properly secured with steel cables to the dock side, which restricts our movements ashore because one of us has to stay with the dinghy or go back to the boat and wait to be called back, that's a 20 minute motor one way multiplied by 4 = 80 minutes of motoring, even at anchor he goes over the top.
When I mentioned the toilet 🚽 arrangements whilst at sea, he suggested that I use a plastic bag and dispose of it when we get ashore. This I drew a line against and flatly refused