In this post I’ll be talking about a subject that is close to my heart. This part of the boat is both luxury and necessity. I speak, of course, about the bathroom, otherwise known as ‘the head’. Such an intuitive name for this part of the boat, no? No? Okay, well it’s called that because in ye olde sailing times, sailors relieved themselves over the side or through a platform at ‘the head’ of the boat, meaning the pointy part. I’m imagining they chose this position so that the wind would blow their foul stench out to sea, not into the faces of their fellow sailors. Unfortunately today’s modern boats don’t have this feature (unless you are at least 3 miles offshore, in which case they might, but be careful.)

No, today’s luxury yachts require one to travel with sewage. Let’s not put too fine a point on it. If we’re old enough to read and write, we’re old enough to know at least some of the less savory facts of life. I’m actually quite proud of the head on Moonrise. As marine toilets go, this one is a dandy. It has the look and feel of a land lubber potty, right down to the porcelain bowl. But the similarities stop there.

We would probably have a lot more guests on the Moonrise if it weren’t for the issue of  sharing facilities. People who know me know that I am frankly a pretty private person in most respects. I’ll share my business, but on my own terms, and generally not this kind of business, if you know what I mean. And most of my women friends feel the same way. I believe that if there were better designed marine heads, more women would agree to their husband’s dream of sailing away. I don’t think many women would be satisfied with a slop bucket, but I’m willing to be wrong about this. To be fair, these designers don’t have much to work with considering that they have little choice in terms of getting rid of the waste. It pretty much has to stay on the boat until you can pump it out at a designated station.

So let’s just say I feel lucky to have such a pretty head. Never mind that using this facility is a several step process that involves filling the bowl with water, making the deposit in the porcelain bank, then pumping it dry, then cleaning the bowl. It’s worth it because there is literally nothing that fills me with more loathing than the idea of being stuck somewhere without a potty. I have middle age and two childbirths to my credit.  I’ve earned a good toilet on a boat, and Mike has replaced the vent hoses and made a dandy air filter so we  live with a lot less stench than other people. If our boat has ‘boatitosis’ neither of us is happy.

Our head is located between the salon and the V berth. It’s separated from those two spaces by two doors, so there is complete privacy, at least visually. Walk through the door from the salon and to port is the potty, to starboard the sink with a deep cabinets for supplies both above the sink and below. Behind the toilet is a hanging locker for wet items.

There is a wooden grate covering the sole in the head. I installed this grate to make the floor a flat surface and to create a storage space underneath. It is easily removed for cleaning or to access that storage space, which was wasted before. There is a similar grate in the v-berth.

In Part 4, I’ll talk about the quarter berths and, my personal favorite area, the V berth.

When we left off on our tour, we were looking at the salon in Moonrise, a Cal 34.  It requires only a quick turn of the head to survey the galley, which is to starboard amid ship. Moonrise has a refrigerator/freezer (yes, the freezer works) , sink with a hand held sprayer, and a propane stove/oven combo. This description tells only part of the story, however.

The Galley, showing the old faucet. We have a fancy new one now with a sprayer. 

The heart of any kitchen can be said to be the stove/oven and a boat galley is no different. Originally, Moonrise was equipped with a Bristol Diesel Stove by Dickinson Marine.  When we bought the boat, we thought this was just about the coolest stove we’d seen. The stove is great for keeping the cabin warm, but cooking a meal on this stove was simply too much trouble for me. Yes, I’m lazy. That’s right. Let’s just call it what it is.  I never cooked a meal on this stove, and we never even tried to boil water on it. Why? Because 1) that stove takes a very, very long time to get hot and is difficult to light 2) that stove smells up the cabin with the smell of diesel 3) most of the time when we are cooking on the boat, it is warm outside and once that stove got hot enough to cook, the interior of the boat was sweltering. In a nutshell, if I wanted to sail in Alaska and keep that stove going all the time to keep the boat warm, it would be awesome. When we bought the boat, we thought we were getting a mighty cool stove.

Instead we ended up with a big hunk of metal taking up precious space and we used a propane camping stove, placed on top of the Dickinson, for cooking. Now I know why the yacht salesman looked away when I exclaimed, ‘What a cool stove!’ upon seeing Moonrise for the first time. I really need to learn to read salesman body language better. I recognize that these stoves are popular and I imagine that many people would jump for joy over that stove. So we kept it just in case the next owner wants it. It’s a great piece of equipment, hence the high price on the new ones. But it just didn’t suit our particular needs.

Mike removed this stove from Moonrise,  and it remains stored in the shed to this day.  In considering what to put in its stead, we came smack up against the cost of anything with the word ‘marine’ in front of it. Are you kidding me? They want how much for a ‘marine’ stove? Considering that the hunk of metal that now lives in the shed retails for over $2000 new, I shouldn’t be too surprised. So when I came upon something like this nifty little Camping Stove at Costco for about $100, I snapped it up without even a second thought. So maybe it will rust out on us in about 10 years. I’ll just buy another one and still be ahead of the game. This little stove runs on those portable bottles of propane you find in the camping section. They don’t take up much room, and one of them lasts us almost a week when we are cruising. We make coffee in the morning, cook breakfast, lunch, and dinner.  Notice that removing the large diesel monster opened up storage space for our cookware.

Update July 2013:  We are in our third season with this little stove and it continues to perform great! No rust at all, and it’s been completely reliable.

Our cute little stove.

Enough about that. Now the refrigerator. The astute reader who has been following along on previous posts will recall that the door to the fridge is actually part of the counter top. Correct. In the photo, the flat wooden thing that looks like a cutting board is actually the lid to the refrigerator. This is where that fold down table has really come in handy. If you cook like I do, you don’t always know in advance what ingredient you’re going to need until you actually need it. On a sailboat, this is a dangerous way for a brain to work. Most sailboats, if they have refrigeration at all, have one like this one. It’s deep, not wide, so things stack on top of each other. The garlic I need is likely to be at the bottom of the fridge, and the sailboat will likely be heeled 15 degrees. Let the unpacking begin. Like I said, that table top is real, real handy.

The fridge holds a lot of food. It’s deep, and cold, and the freezer will make ice.

On the other hand, the freezer, though small, actually does freeze things. And the unit has a fairly large capacity.  The fact that it can freeze ice means that on our last trip, Mike and I enjoyed iced cocktails every night! Let me tell you something: that’s totally worth it!

Vew from the top. You can see the work space, and  sink.

Mike installed the hand held sprayer next to the faucet. It worked great but he wasn’t satisfied. So he installed a different faucet. It’s nicer than the faucet I have at home. As an added bonus, you can fill a pot with water while the pot is on the stove, just like in those fancy schmancy gourmet kitchens you see on TV.

Our shiny new faucet from Second Wave Marine Supply. This makes hair washing a breeze. 

In terms of food storage, we do well on this boat. I stored watermelon, drinks, eggs, and a few other items in the bilge by the galley on the last trip and that worked out fine. The bilge has a flat bottom and three compartments. There is a lot of room there and things stay cool. There are also cabinets along the hull that run the length of the counter top plus stove. There is plenty of space for storing foods and dishware, and the 4 drawers offer more than enough space for cooking and eating utensils. In addition, with the removal of the huge table, we have easy access to the storage underneath the settee.

Next up on our tour: the head and the v-berth. I know you can’t wait for Part 3!