I was making dinner and looked out the window just in time to see an eagle swoop down and scoop something out of the water. It was wriggling, a fish! An impressive catch to be able to see it near the surface, then dart down and pull it out before the fish knew what was happening. Now he’s on the beach, enjoying his dinner. I’ve been getting cabin fever. There isn’t much I can do on shore here — it’s just dense forest. But the water has been so clear, and surprisingly warm, that it was quite inviting. So this afternoon I struggled into my wetsuit and went for a swim. I took the opportunity to scrub the side of Jura’s hull along the waterline, and it was nice just to be in the water. I’ve never been one to get overly excited about jumping into the ocean. There’s something so vulnerable about the depths below you that you can’t see, even though I know it's safe. Being in a sailboat is already a vulnerable position. Being in the water is even more so. And being without any clothing feels like the most vulnerable version of all, so at least the wetsuit gives me some kind of barrier.

I’ve been thinking lately about how to capture water while travelling, because sometimes fresh water can be the limiting factor to how far I can stay out before needing to seek out civilization. So far it hasn’t been a problem. I can carry quite a lot of water, and over the last several weeks I’ve been learning how to conserve more and more of it. I’ve largely stopped washing my hands with water, and use primarily hand sanitizer. I wash dishes almost entirely with salt water, only lightly rinsing things like cups and cutlery with fresh water. I don’t worry as much about pots and pans that are going to be heated up again anyway, since that will hopefully kill anything that might have been in the salt water. I’ve also been washing myself with salt water: soaping up, rinsing with salt water, and then using my pesticide sprayer with fresh water to spray myself off with just enough to get the salt off. And I’ve been cooking with salt water too — boiling vegetables like potatoes in it, which is really delicious. Cabbage boiled in salt water is fantastic. Pasta works well in half salt water, half fresh. All of those things mean I could probably make it a month with the water I carry on board. Maybe six weeks. But it is still nice to know I can take on more fresh water, and also to have enough for things like rinsing my wetsuit so it doesn’t get salty and smelly. Laundry is another limiting factor. I need to find somewhere to wash clothes every month or so, and if I need to do that on board, it takes quite a lot of water. So I’ve been thinking about how I can capture water without a watermaker, which is incredibly expensive and energy intensive. The obvious option is collecting water from creeks, and there is an abundance of those around here. I just need a way to filter it. It seems like the best approach would be one of those filter bags you fill and hang up, letting gravity do the work. But getting enough water on board from a creek would probably still mean hauling jugs a long way, which sounds like a lot of work. It has been raining for the last few days, so I’ve also been thinking about how people voyaged long-term offshore before watermakers. They captured rain running off the sails. Maybe I should rig up some way to do that. Being in the Pacific Northwest, there is no shortage of rain. I could use the same kind of filter bag: hoist the mainsail, let rain run off it into the bag, hang it off the end of the boom, and then filter it into one of my 20 litre jugs. Then I could use that water for things like washing clothes and rinsing my wetsuit, or even put it into the tanks. It is slightly unsavoury to think about drinking water that has just washed over my sails. But if push comes to shove, it’s a good way to survive. And at the very least, it would be very good washing water.