Food and Cooking
We will have to store enough food for 5 of us to complete the crossing. We have lots of cupboards and storage spaces in the galley and under bunks etc to keep it all. We also have a fridge and a freezer which take up most of one side of our galley. By the standards of most boats these are quite large. We have two deep double sinks with a sea water pump for doing the washing up when we are at sea. Fresh water is a scarce commodity at sea. We have a gas stove with four burners and an oven. The bottled gas is stored in a specially constructed locker (another requirement for the EU compliance certificate).
Sleeping
We have two double cabins, three bunks in the saloon and two bunks in the forepeak. Each of the bunks will have a lee cloth which is a piece of canvas which is firmly attached to the bunk and which you tie up in such a way that when the boat leans over, you don’t fall out of your bunk. I can assure that this is REALLY important.
Keeping clean
We have two heads – (bathrooms in landspeak). One is conveniently (no pun intended!) by the companionway, (the steps down into the boat from the deck) and the other is ensuite to the main cabin. They each have holding tanks to comply with EU law, but at sea we will just pump straight out into the sea. In the forward heads, we have a shower and the whole area is now sealed so that we can use it like a wet room or even fill it up like a bath! We won’t be doing that at sea, since water is a scarce commodity when you are away from land for two to three weeks at a time. So we won’t be doing a lot of washing…..