Tuesday, July 20, 2010

QUESTIONS FROM MAREN

This morning I had this message from my friend Ivy:
"I thought I would transcribe the “20 questions” Maren has asked since being on your boat. Thought you would get a kick out of seeing your life through the eyes of a 6 year old. We decided this morning we would read her your blog and follow your journey. I love that you are teaching her (and others) to live their dream!"

Well, Maren, I'm so excited to have your questions. I'll occasionally put one of them here and tell you the answer. Thanks for reading. (Maybe you can send me a new picture. This one is over a year old. You're much more grown up now.)

Question #1:

Maren: “where do they get drinking water from?”

Cara Mia has a big tank under the living room floor that is made to store water. It holds as much as three bathtubs -- maybe more!

Look around next time you're at a dock, and you'll see faucets, just like the ones in your yard. When we're at a dock, we attach one end of a hose to those faucets on the dock and one end to the tank on the boat, then turn on the water until the tank is full. There's a gauge, like the gas gauge in the car, that shows us how much water is in the tank.

We filter the water as we put it into the tank and then again before we drink it. Filtering means putting the water through something that catches any bad stuff that might be floating in there. Have you ever dragged a net through the water? The net catches whatever is bigger than the holes that are in the net. Our filters work just like that, but the holes in the filters are so tiny they catch things that are too small to see.

When I lived in a house, I used water without ever thinking about it. Now that we have to carry all the water we use and then replace it, I am much more careful about when and how I use it.

TRY THIS: When you get up in the morning, fill a one gallon milk jug with water, and pretend it's all the water you have for the whole day. Every time you need water to wash your hands or brush your teeth or have a drink, take it out of the jug. By the end of the day, you will not only see how much water you've used, but you'll learn to use it more thoughtfully. That is what we are doing on the boat but with a much bigger jug!

Some day we would like to get a watermaker, which doesn't really make water, it just takes ocean water and removes the salt and other stuff that makes it taste icky. Watermakers cost a lot of money, but once we have one, we will have water as long as there is water in the ocean!

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