Adventures in Cruising: Showers
02 January 2015
Mary Deyo
We have been living aboard Northern Lights for just over 4 months. During this time we have certainly wanted an occasional shower. Our J/42 isn't like many of the modern cruising boats that have separate shower stalls, but we mainly avoid showering aboard for water conservation.
Since we don't shower aboard, we look for showers in marinas. Fortunately, it is a rare marina that doesn't have shower facilities available to guests. These facilities vary, though, between wonderful and unusable.
Highlights and Lowlights
Pay showers
These have almost all been in Canada, where the Loonie ($1 Canadian coin) usually provides about 3 minutes of shower time. We are used to this and have learned how to take very quick showers and to have a few spare Loonies in case the shower stops before we are rinsed.
Gym-class-style showers
This is what I call the shower facilities where there is a communal dressing area and (usually) separate shower stalls. These tend to be drafty and lack any idea of privacy (or security). Some surprisingly upscale marinas have this design. Perhaps the designers really enjoyed socializing in gym class?
Cold showers
We've seen this mainly at beach resort marinas. My suspicion is that no one complains because the large power boats all have huge water tanks and nice shower stalls. In one marina, the men's showers were fine--but these were also used by the male workers. The women's showers had no hot water pressure--and few female workers.
Crescent City (a Work in Progress)
The Crescent City marina had barely reopened when we arrived and they hadn't yet worked out their shower protocols for visitors. We were invited to use a unisex shower near the marina office, taking turns. This was a nice, large room but there was an unstable wooden platform to stand on that made the shower an adventure. Later, we asked some workers about a shower building much closer to our guest dock and they expressed surprise that we didn't have a key. They let us in and we had nice, warm showers shared with the local spider populations.
Recycled county jail facility?
The transient moorage on Shelter Island in San Diego Bay includes a public restroom and code-protected shower facilities. The women's shower stall was metal, with random holes in the wall (angry prisoners?). The men's shower was just a large concrete space with a dirty floor and no place to sit or place anything down.
Personal favorite
My favorite shower facilities (so far) were at the Shelter Cove Marina in San Diego. These had individual stalls with doors to keep the showers from soaking our dry clothes. We were there a month and made liberal use of the facilities.