Life on board

My lifestyle change has been significant lately.  My move onto my ship has been eye opening and at the same time a lot of fun.  I have been writing about the restoration of my ship elsewhere for a long time but I thought it worth noting what it is like trying to live on board a ship.

Firstly, the ship itself is very large but as it is undergoing restoration my world is a small section of 4 cabins.  There is no heating or running hot water (kettle and commercial tea urn is all there is).  I have a toilet and sink and running (very very) cold water.  The cabins are below deck and have no portholes (to be fitted later) and so every day is night.

WIthout heating, the temperature of the cabins hit 2 degrees C last week.   With a small fan heater I can raise one of the rooms to a balmy 20 degrees while it is on but I cannot keep it on at night due to the noise.  So the temperature plummets.

This sounds horrific but in fact it is not.  Its hard, admittedly, but not has hard going as you might imagine.  You have to change the way you live and when you do, it shows how wasteful we all are.

Without heating you do a few things

1) Wear more clothes indoors.  Body warmers are the best invention ever as they are no bulky and keep you nicely warm.

2) All water from the sink exits to the bucket.  This is then emptied down the loo.  So what?  Well, my water consumption is mega low.  I do not leave the tap running.  Massively more efficient.

3) 16 amps of power is all I have.  So I have to use low energy bulbs and cannot have everything switched on.  You get used to ensuring that heater is off before kettle goes on etc.

Ok, so I shower at the gym every morning but even with that the lifestyle is quite green.  Maybe there are some clues to the way ahead for all of us.   With energy and water bills rising maybe its time we all changed some habits.  Yes, its inconvenient, yes it can be slightly uncomfortable at times.  But the savings are there to be had.