Before I started traveling by boat, not only my maritime knowledge, but also my culinary knowledge, was very poor. So, in preparing the Vecchietto for its world tour, I downloaded a whole collection of books about cooking on board, hoping to find tips and solutions in them. However, I didn't get anything useful. When, when crossing the Atlantic, I no longer had my own ideas and fresh products, I was looking for, for example, a recipe for pasta with a sauce different from the usual or alternative way of cooking fish, I came across: pappardelle with nutssaffron, linguine with fresh salmon, crayfish in cognac sauce and so on. I was always missing more than half of the ingredients. When other times I had a fish or a shellfish or some kind of crustacean, slightly different from the usual, and I looked for advice on how to cook them, I was always offered a technology from high gastronomy, impossible to implement on my stove and my cramped kitchen.

When an Indonesian friend of ours, invited to dinner, came to Bali with a kilogram of turtle meat, which is a traditional delicacy there, I could not get away from cooking. Under the heading sea turtle, the book offered a Maltese recipe that listed chicken gelatin (I had it!!), dried apple slices, pink peppercorns, raisins and I don't remember what the hell.

In the end, I decided to make it my own way and turned a piece of turtle into a mountain of Milanese cutlets, using bottle-crushed Indonesian biscuits instead of breadcrumbs. It turned out great, although the experiment was never repeated again!

Apart from the difficulties with the cooking itself, I couldn't find any clue anywhere on how to store food on the boat, how to make it last longer, what kind of containers to use, and many more small-big practical problems. Therefore, upon returning from around the world, I proposed to the publishing house "Editrice Incontri Nautici" to write a book on cooking. Not a collection of recipes, but a book about cooking on board a boat, where she laid out on paper the solutions found during many miles of sailing, exchange of experience and many unsuccessful attempts.

After the publication of the book “In order not to die of hunger”, you cannot imagine how many times I have heard:

— I cooked according to your recipe, but without this and that. It still turned out well!

Or

- I took your advice on how to preserve flour so that worms do not start in it. It worked!

The problem of food has always been the cause of riots and riots on ships, from the Bounty uprising to the present day. On the Genoese courts, the pay was low, but there was a right to express dissatisfaction. On other courts, one could not even protest, and one had to eat what they were given. Any protest was considered a riot.

But even today, in the era of frozen food and microwave ovens, the issue of food and cuisine on board a sailboat raises some problems. Cooking on a boat is not the same as cooking at home. Space is limited, few supplies and often no stove. The cabinets are quite small and not always at hand all the necessary ingredients. Sometimes it becomes very inconvenient to prepare food while sailing, and if you do not pay due attention, it can be dangerous. But on a long trek, you can't risk weakening just because of a kitchen problem. I visitof course, very difficult situations, storms, moments of fatigue, but it is then that additional forces are needed to avoid the worst problems.

We, for example, had to reach the limit of exhaustion. It was the rainy season. For a whole month we were on the voyage, in the sense that a month ago we left Fiji and went to the Salomon Islands, making occasional stops at the forgotten islands we meet along the way. There was a terrible heat, thunderstorms constantly flew in, and it was inconvenient not only to cook, even to live. It's been a year and a half since we've been in the Pacific Ocean and we couldn't look at coconuts, bananas and sweet potatoes, the only foods that could be found on these islands. We t fishbut they could not eat, since only recently recovered from chiguatera and it was not recommended to use it for at least a year. One day, after another change of head sails, we lay in the cockpit, out of breath and unable to even talk. Why are we so weak? We began to fear that we had contracted malaria, or money, or some other tropical disease. Then, we analyzed how we ate lately: coffee with milk in the morning and nothing else throughout the day, the day before, a little puree in the morning and that's it. And so it went ondimo for many days. There were pasta, rice, dry beans, canned food, jams and many other things on the boat, but we no longer wanted to eat because of physical fatigue and because of the monotony of taste. Once you figured out what the problem was, it was relatively easy to solve. We pledged to cook at least twice a day, food easy to prepare and easily digestible: mashed potatoes, boiled rice, canned fruit. Then we made an unscheduled stop at Honiara and got meat, vegetables and bread there, and so we got out of the situation. The moral of all this is food is veryimportant, especially in difficult times. And the ability to cook simple things in difficult conditions is something worth learning.

But on the other hand, there is not always bad weather, there is also a calm sailing or quiet days at anchorage in a calm bay, away from everything and everyone. And here, if you like to cook, you can let your imagination run wild.

There are people who, when they charter a boat outside of Italy, go with supplies of wine, oil and food for the battalion, and there are those who believe that cooking on the voyage humiliates sailboating. Naturally, everyone does what he thinks is right or what he likes (at least in this!). But if a long trip is planned, such as around the world, you will have to cook, and since it is impossible to have the usual foods, spices and drinks all the time, you need to know and be able to cook from the ingredients used in the rest of the world. Need to learndo without many products and utensils that seem necessary at home, and, most importantly, learn to replace them with those new ones that the world offers you. Travel is also a cultural experience, and one of the most direct ways to get to know people is to share food with them.

Кухня и плита

However, before cooking, you need to equip the kitchen.

Let's start with what we call a stove at home. It should be stainless steel and gimbaled. It doesn't matter how big and stable the boat is. Possibility of the plate to swing

relative to the longitudinal axis, a guarantee of safety. And often, when you're very excited, you'll notice that the surface of the oscillating plate is the only place you can put a cup of coffee on without it immediately tipping over.

After that, you can already indulge in all sorts of other discussions, for example, about the fuel used.

We use kerosene. It's part old habit, part conscious choice. It can be found in any part of the world and a twenty-liter canister is enough for six months in excess. The kerosene stove, the legendary Primus, is perhaps a little pricey, but requires no additional expense for gas pipes, cylinders, adapters, requires little to no maintenance other than occasional cleaning of the burners, and lasts almost forever. The only problem is the preheating of the burners. It is necessary to fill a special tank with alcohol andburn it for a few tens of seconds before turning on the burner itself. Warm up time is very important. If you turn it on earlier than necessary, the burner burns with an orange flame, stinks and smokes everything around, if you turn it on later, the burner is no longer hot enough and the kerosene does not burn well. In short, you need to get your hands dirty, and this can be a problem if there are a lot of people on the boat and everyone needs to master the primus. We, for example, do not allow anyone to kindle it. We are a little obsessed, I understand that, but we don’t have guests so often and when this happensXia, we prefer to do it ourselves, day and night, every time, even when someone just wants to make their own coffee. In some places alcohol can be hard to find or very expensive. For this, a friend of ours adapted a small Campingas-type cylinder-powered gas heater. Its flame is hotter than that of alcohol and a few seconds are enough to heat the burner, and one bottle lasts a very long time. Although it must be said that even in the most severe Muslim country, there is a Chinese or Indian merchant selling alcohol.

A gas stove, of course, is much easier to turn on, but it has its own problems. More dangerous because an accidental gas leak can cause it to accumulate in the hold and explode as a result of an accidental spark. Then there is the problem of adapters. Each country in the world has its own system for connecting a cylinder to a reducer, and each time you need to acquire a new adapter. And not in every country, cylinders, even if you have to carry them for refueling for many kilometers, are refueled properly.

One year, when we were stationed in Tanzania, it happened that all the boats arriving from Thailand came with empty cylinders. Their gas ran out during the transition, much earlier than it was planned. They all filled them up at the same gas station in Phuket, and apparently there were some problems there. Some ran out of gas already on the Chagos, with the prospect of at least fifteen days of sailing before arriving in Africa, with no way to heat up any food. I remember how one American woman told how, in order to make rice digestible, she soaked it in pots.e for many hours by putting on the desalination compressor to use the heat. In the end, I think the brew turned out not much worse than cooked on the stove.

Every time we arrived at the marina in Australia, an inspector came to check if our gas equipment complied with safety standards (we did not have it, so everything was OK), and our friends, in order to sell the boat in Australia, had to modify it, so that the cylinders are outside, which is better from a safety point of view, but the cylinders corrode more from salt.

All these problems, however, are solvable, and among boats floating around the world, there are much more adherents of gas than of kerosene.

There are no other alternatives, I think. Only once I happened to see an alcohol stove and even heard talk about electric ones, but I never met a boat on which it would be installed.

Having chosen the type of fuel and installed the stove, all that remains is to fasten an adjustable belt near it, allowing you to cook using both hands when you are on the leeward side of the stove. Two quick-opening carabiners allow you to quickly get into a comfortable position. The handrail, located above the stove, will allow you not to fall on the pans when the boat is tilted in the other direction.

Печка.

If there is a stove, fine. It is closed and allows you to solve many problems, from first courses to desserts. It consumes more than the stove, it should be heated in advance and opened as little as possible during cooking, in order to avoid sudden changes in the temperature of the food being cooked. Up to this point, everything is at home. But unlike at home, the stove is used to the maximum on the boat. While it is warming up, you can put it on to rise dough for bread or brown toast; when it is off, you can use it to reheat dishes or put a baking sheet there.boiled potatoes, cut into slices and sprinkled with cheese, or tomato halves with a drop of oil, garlic, salt and oregano. It works very well. I got my hands on this, but I am writing all this because on a boat it is not enough to turn the handle to start fuel flowing, you need to follow it and bring a cylinder or canister on your own shoulders!

What if there is no oven?

If you have space for another pot, you can purchase a stovetop stove. They are sold in stores selling camping equipment. This is such a special donut-shaped pot with a round, perforated lid. It is placed on a metal fungus installed on the included stove. You can cook everything in it, bread, pizza, cakes, pastries, just like in a normal oven.

During the round-the-world trip on the Vecchietto, we had such an oven (it is called Petronilla) and it provided us with bread, pizza, cakes and pastries during the three years of the trip.

If there is no place for such a stove, learn to do without it. Make cold cakes and learn how to use a pressure cooker closed but without a valve. This is a good replacement oven. It is enough to place a dish in it, having previously lubricated the walls with oil, like a regular baking sheet. Then the lid closes, leaving the safety valve open or completely removed, and it cooks for a little less time than in a conventional oven, the only problem is that a crust does not form on top. You can also cook bread in it, although it always turns out slightlyburnt underneath.

Холодильник

A refrigerator is not a necessity, but it's great to have one. During our first circumnavigation of the world, it broke down almost immediately. A few months later we came to Panama and tried to fix it. But refrigerators for boats are tricky. A technician, a man two meters tall and a meter wide, with a happy smile of a person living in warm countries, dismantled it and took it with him. A few days later he returned, looking down, with an oiled box full of small parts. Raised his hands:

- Parts of everything, try elsewhere.

Since then, the refrigerator has remained in this box and over time we forgot about it. We filled the box with ice where we could get it, and then there was a holiday, because we could afford ice drinks and other luxuries, but most of the time we did without it. You get used to drinking tepid water, and after a while you no longer pay attention to it. You get used to counting the menu on beans, rice, potatoes and canned food, on those products that do not require storage in the cold. You begin to use other methods for preserving food: drying singsemolina, lubricate eggs with petroleum jelly, dry bread in the sun.

Once at a stop in the Cook Islands, we met the French on a makeshift boat. Also without a refrigerator, but they fed us goat stew with potatoes, very tasty! They were lucky to get a goat on a desert island. They cut it into small pieces and salted it in large glass jars taken from home. This provided them with meat dishes for several months.

In short, a refrigerator is not a necessity, and small boats, less than eight meters, usually do not have one, for obvious reasons, lack of space and electricity.

You can do without a refrigerator, but when you have it, it's just great! You can store cheese brought by friends for several months and eat it when you are very far away, when you really want to, you can buy tomatoes in the market, choosing green ones and then store them at the bottom of the refrigerator and get them in a month, when you are already in places where people never seen tomatoes. This is a luxury that is well worth the effort spent on installing and maintaining the refrigerator.

At one time, gas-fired refrigerators were used. They are very simple and consume little, are reliable and work for decades, but do not get very cold. And with them there are all the same safety and refueling problems as with gas stoves.

There are refrigerators powered by a motor, powerful and efficient. With a huge power, they cool very quickly. Their defect is just that they work only when the motor is on, and it turns out that in order to drink cold water, you will have to listen to the noise of the motor when it is not necessary.

And finally, there are electric refrigerators, the most common. Their disadvantage is the large consumption of electricity from on-board batteries. But in recent years, technology has improved, consumption has decreased and reliability has greatly increased. If the refrigerator is well insulated and not opened too often, these new systems are reasonably efficient and consume moderately. The latest models have a controller that regulates the operation of the refrigerator depending on the available electricity. If the batteries are heavily charged when the engine is running orthe solar panels are well lit, the refrigerator is working at full capacity, when the voltage drops, the controller reduces the power of the refrigerator or even turns it off to prevent the batteries from completely draining.

On "Barca pulita" we have an electric Frigoboat.

The system works great. Very easy to install, we installed it ourselves in half a day, no need to charge freon, because it is already charged, and never breaks. In addition, since we began to cool it with a Veco outdoor heat exchanger,

consumes very little and freezes water in a little longer than an hour. It also works on land, it is enough to keep a wet rag on the heat exchanger.

What greatly reduces the electricity consumption of the refrigerator is the quality of the thermal insulation. Most often, the refrigerator compartment is part of the boat at the time of purchase and there is nothing left but to be content with what is. If it is to be equipped, it is necessary to do this, following some rules that significantly reduce the dispersion of cold, which we described in the appendix, so as not to tire those who are not going to design a refrigerator in vain.

If it is not possible to install a refrigerator, at least an ice box, closed and well insulated, with a drainage hole in the hold, can be equipped. By filling it with ice, it can hold meat or other perishable products. You can't imagine how many places in the world where you can find ice. We even found it on a lost island in the Tonga archipelago, where the Japanese government donated ice-making equipment to the local population (less than two hundred souls) to save fish. Naturally, we were the only customers. HAs for freezers, only Americans need them. I don't know how, but they manage to leave home with the exact amount of chicken wings and turkey legs they need for a barbecue all around the world. For us, ordinary people, a freezer is just a device that consumes a lot of electricity. In fact, the boat needs more refrigeration than freezing to keep some vegetables, sausages and cheeses brought from Italy longer, to keep bread that would otherwise have to be eaten stale or toasted, and how muchno, to have water at a more pleasant temperature to drink. The need to freeze anything, at least we never felt.

So, a refrigerator should be large enough to hold a lot, well insulated to take in little, open at the top so that it doesn't lose a lot of cold air each time it opens, with a thermostat to regulate temperature and consumption to an acceptable level. It is not a necessity, you can drink an aperitif warm, but if you want a gin and tonic at sunset in a misted glass! ..

Организация кухни

The limited space naturally determines the equipment of the kitchen and its dimensions. It is very important to learn to live in this space. And over time, everything works out. Once we met an English boat, the owners of which used part of the kitchen space as a workshop. They had one pot and a kettle. The guy who went with them across the Pacific Ocean, wistfully told that the daily meal for twenty days consisted of potatoes, pasta and corned beef, boiled together in one pan. Although, on English boats with equipped kitchens, gotoVyat is not much better!

At the other extreme, on the Suvarov atoll, in the middle of the desert ocean, on an American boat, where we were invited for breakfast, brioches were offered, brought frozen from California and heated before serving in the microwave.

But don't worry, there are intermediate options!

Let's start with pots. They must also correspond to the size of the stove, oven and cabinet in which they are to be stored. A pressure cooker, in my opinion, is simply necessary. It saves time, water and fuel. In addition, it is hermetically sealed and is easier to handle when pitching. Cook in it vegetables, legumes, roasts and stews (when available), fish and much more. Once you learn how to cook pasta in it, you don't have to drain the water anymore, a rather dangerous procedure on a moving boat, and possibly wearing only a bathing suit. It's very simple, doPrecisely cook the sauce in an open pressure cooker and before it thickens, throw in the short pasta, mix well for a few seconds to soak in the sauce and pour hot water just to coat the top. The pressure cooker closes and everything is cooked, from the whistle, half the time indicated on the package. Then the lid opens and for a few more seconds the paste is dried to the desired condition.

Risotto is prepared in the same way.

I know that experienced cooks never use a pressure cooker at home. But on a boat it's different. Remember, take it with you, even if you don't believe us, because when you change your mind on a long journey (and I assure you you will), you will be horrified by the prices for them outside of Italy.

A kettle too, on a boat is more useful than at home. It is completely closed and it is convenient to pour boiling water through the spout for making tea, coffee, hot broths, lyophilized puree, and other delicacies that are indispensable when it is cold and the sea is stormy. Buy yourself a good one, made of stainless steel, and it will grow old with you ... We still have the same kettle for 20 years, it is already on the third boat with us and is still in service, although it has long lost its two-tone whistle.

In addition to these fundamental elements, the minimum kitchen equipment should include: a non-stick frying pan, a medium-sized saucepan and a smaller saucepan. If space allows, you can add a couple more pans and a ladle, with appropriate lids, which, in case of absence, are replaced by plates.

For the oven, you can use rectangular or oval baking sheets made of stainless steel or heat-resistant glass. They do not rust, are easy to clean and can be stored permanently in the oven, just like all other pots, if there is not enough space for them, they can be stored inserted one into the other on a stove in a gimbals.

And the coffee maker? You will quickly see that this is an object with a non-constant center of gravity. At first, the water, and therefore the weight, is at the bottom, but when the coffee is almost ready, the water rises and stability becomes very problematic. Coffee is a pleasure, but spilled coffee, what kind of pleasure is that? You can switch to instant, the one that is drunk on almost all boats, or brew it using a filter. But if you absolutely cannot do without a coffee maker, keep it under control!

As a working tool, you should have a corkscrew, a can opener, manual and without rollers, because their axles rust and break, a grater, if possible, allowing you to grate with different sizes, a couple of wooden spoons, one for sweet, the other for salty and some good cutting knives. If you still manage to place a small knife or an abrasive block, it’s very good. You will also need a pair of scissors, a funnel, a kitchen board, a couple of large salad bowls, a colander and a sieve.

And again, if space allows, you can expand. You can increase the number and size of cups, you can get a citrus juicer, a whisk, a sieve for making vegetable purees, a ladle, a slotted spoon, a spatula, a carrot peeler, a measuring vessel for liquids and several dishes.

However, you can do without all these things: you can squeeze citrus fruits with your hands by sticking a fork into the pulp, with the same fork, or two crossed forks, egg whites are beaten and vegetables are crushed, any dishes with a handle are used instead of a ladle, a knife is used instead of a spatula and the same knife peeled carrots. Flour, water and sugar, measure by eye or with the glasses, cups and spoons you have. For example, four tablespoons correspond to about one hundred grams of flour or sugar and about the same amount of butter. If maThe layer is packaged in jars, you can perfectly dose it with spoons. And most of the glasses with a handle have a volume of a quarter liter.

In addition to the necessary things, there are those that make it easier to work in the kitchen and simplify life. For example: paper towels, plastic wrap, aluminum foil rolls, baking paper, plastic grocery bags, clothespins that are easy to close bags, oven mitts, long oven gloves, and a plastic apron would be nice to avoid trouble when hot oil splashes, and you only wear shorts from your clothes.

Indeed, the most serious incident in our kitchen happened when Carlo knocked over a pot of boiling potatoes on his feet. On the wave, he hit the stove, and the freshly opened pressure cooker turned over. He wore only a pair of canvas shorts and spent the next three weeks lying down, his legs covered in burns.

To rationalize the use of the refrigerator and not to pile food in a heap, it is good to use plastic baskets and jars of various shapes and sizes with airtight lids. They are easy to place and stack on top of each other.

After cooking, the turn comes and eat it, so let's move on to the table. Deep plates, or even bowls, are preferable to flat plates, they spill less when the boat is rocking hard, and when eating in the cockpit, the food stays longer, even for a steak or sushi, flat plates are more elegant! For drinking, you can use glasses with a handle, they will replace both glasses and cups. Mugs are preferable to stainless steel and not enameled, as the enamel breaks off when struck and they rust. They are more expensive, but last almost forever, incl.while glasses made of plastic and melanin darken from tea and coffee. They can be washed by soaking in bleach, but from frequent processing they become porous and ugly. Spoons, forks, choose from stainless steel and do not be surprised if they still rust a little.

Lastly, leave a little space for the tools you learn to use on your journey, and they will become indispensable for the new ingredients you will need to use. I mean, for example, a coconut grater, which is on every boat sailing in the tropics, a small mortar for ginger and other roots that will need to be crushed, or one of the many ingenious fish cleaning devices that all fishermen in the world use.

After reading everything written above, one could come to a simple formula: big boat means well-equipped kitchen, small boat means spartan kitchen. But it's not. Our friend Mikel, a loner on the Arpage, makes pasta on the boat at least once a week with a stainless steel machine brought from Italy and hangs it to dry on long wooden rolling pins hung across the cabin. And, if you will allow me to go beyond the topic of the kitchen, once a year he alters the upholstery of mattresses on his sewing machine.

On the Parpar, a nine-meter Canadian boat, we saw a mixer, a toaster, a kerosene oven with a cake pan, a seed germinator, and a yogurt maker. In compensation, when you dine with them, they give books to put under hot dishes and not burn your knees. There is no table on the boat. The complete opposite, another Canadian boat, a self-built trimaran, is very light. The owner, Frances, proudly showed me an aluminum garlic press.

I hate cutting garlic, but I couldn't afford a steel crusher because it's so heavy. Now this one has changed my whole life.

But, of course, not the life of her guests, who, being invited to dinner, are forced to endure terrible dishes from products cooked together, because there is only one pan on the boat, undercooked, to save gas, because you can’t load a spare cylinder on the boat, and without salt, because salt is harmful and also weighs!

Мытьё посуды

If the boat is not in the marina, the dishes can be perfectly washed with sea water. In warm seas, you can use a normal detergent diluted in a cup of warm, fresh water. There are also special products for sea water, but they are expensive and almost never found outside the Mediterranean. It is quite possible to use any other means. Just then rinse the dishes in sea water, but rinse very well.

This sink is suitable for both plates and pots, cutlery and stainless steel mugs. If you use them every day, they won't have time to rust at the welds and stain. The only thing you need to do is rinse everything well with fresh water if you are going to leave the boat and not use the dishes for a long time. The valve of the pressure cooker, if a long break in its use is expected, must be removed and soaked for some time in fresh water, especially the part with a rubber gasket (if any).

And the last treatment, also in case the boat stays for a long time in a hot climate, is for wooden tools such as a kitchen board, wooden spoons, knife handles. If you don’t want to find them covered in finger-thick mold upon your return, just wash them with fresh water and detergent, soak them for half an hour in water with disinfectant or chlorine solution, though bleach stinks a lot, and rinse them. Periodically wiping a wooden or Teflon board with a bleach solution to avoid odorsunworthy kitchen utensils.

Мусор

The problem with the garbage on the boat is always quite ticklish.

Everyone goes to sea with good intentions, throw nothing overboard and keep all trash until the next stop. And if the voyage is long, the lockers are filled with bags and bags, which every day increase in volume and emit unpleasant odors, always get underfoot, tear at the most inopportune moment and are finally thrown overboard in a fit of rage caused by seasickness. If you manage to take them to the shore, then often in third world countries, and not only, you are faced with a bitter surprise, discovering that your, reThe rubbish stored on board for days and weeks is dumped into a pile of local garbage and thrown straight into the sea.

If the voyage is long, it is impossible to keep everything on board. It is much better to accept certain compromises and follow realistic rules. Food organic waste and paper can be thrown straight into the sea. We do not even get a bag for them, because then there will be a problem of a dirty and smelly bag, which no one knows where to put. When cooking, the waste is put into a bucket or basin, after which everything is thrown into the sea and the bucket is rinsed. All this decomposes very quickly and is eaten even faster by fish and cannot be considered polluted.niem.

Glass can also be thrown into the sea, it is enough to do it on the high seas and first break bottles or cans to be sure that they will go to the bottom. The same thing with tin cans, open and perforate so that they immediately drown. No one, not even the sea, will suffer from this. But don't expect public approval for this, there will always be someone who will criticize you.

All these remarks, of course, are true only for sailing. Needless to say, if you are moored or anchored in a closed bay, it is better to pack everything in a bag and then burn it on the shore or bury it away from the water.

But plastic cannot be thrown into the sea and must be kept on board. It's comforting to know that there isn't much of it. Plastic bottles should be kept as spare containers, as well as bags. Everything else, if you think about it, is just trifles, and takes up very little space. And you know what is the biggest risk, especially when you have guests on board? If you have a container or bag for plastic waste in your kitchen, all sorts of other rubbish is bound to be there. Because it is very difficult to instill in newcomers the habit of throwing everything away.yo in the sea. Firstly, because it is more convenient to throw everything into a bag that is at hand than to go out on deck, and also because everyone is now environmentalists, for a clean sea, without floating paper or potato peelings, but at the same time they come to the boat with the mountain sanitary napkins, dental floss, ear sticks, plastic and polystyrene bags, and sometimes even disposable cameras.

I had to develop measures of coercion and psychological terrorism to force my friends to throw only the bare minimum into the dumpster. I use a very transparent package. You can't imagine how embarrassed people are to see someone even with a cotton swab that was just used to clean their face. And the bag should be located away from the kitchen, so that it would be more convenient to go on deck, throw it into the sea, than to get to the garbage bag. I even get people to admit their own trash when I see stuff in the bagwhich should have been thrown into the sea and may already be starting to smell! I know this is paranoia, but do you know how much trash six people can accumulate in six days if you're not vigilant?

Once in a marina in Fiji, I witnessed a scene that says a lot about what people put into words - the environment. Half a dozen sacks of waste, including food, in the late stage of decomposition, were unloaded from the Finnish boat that had just arrived on the shore. The shift guard pointed out to the crew that they should throw all this into the sea, because otherwise they would dirty the garbage cans of the marina.