Tips and tricks

I always drink from the tap both at home and on the boat. I have a routine I follow every spring when I get the boat ready for summer fun. It keeps the tank water from smelling and it tastes good enough to make coffee with.


Our ice and coffee is from the tap. We usually bring bottle water for drinking. The more you use it the better it is... we flash it once per year and that’s it...
 
Our ice and coffee is from the tap. We usually bring bottle water for drinking. The more you use it the better it is... we flash it once per year and that’s it...

We also have an ice maker and use the on-board water for coffee. My wife brought a gallon jug of Poland Spring last season that went unopened. I do bring bottle water, but that's just to put in the fridges to have really cold water.

I add some Camco water freshener at each fill-up. That keeps things sweet all season long.
 
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Keep a flexible squeegee on a stick onboard for getting rid of excess water after washing the boat. Makes drying the boat with your chamois on a stick go much faster.
 
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Use your cockpit wash down hose to start the weekly wash of your boat. Use it until the freshwater tank is empty and then switch to your dock side hose to finish the job. When you are done washing the boat, the hose will be flushed with cold water that you can use to refill your water tank. Do this every week and you will not need chemicals in the water tank to keep it fresh if you have a good water supply.
 
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Keep a spray can of Plex on your boat to use with a microfiber rag to keep your eisenglass looking great.
 
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Use spray on Woody Wax once a month on your decks to make wash jobs easier. Always use a wax sparing soap in the wash bucket. Avoid boat store bottles of "boat soap". These products strip wax more often than not.
 
Put a black heavy duty garbage bag over the power pedestal on the dock behind your boat to block the light when visiting those places that have the Mayflies. Hopefully your boat won't look like the car in post #36. Yuk!
Not exactly legal, but when anchoring out during "bug season", pick an anchorage with a few sailboats in it and anchor amongst them. A good sailboater always shows an anchor light at night. Don't turn yours on. Then in the morning he can be mad at you for more than just your generator as you motor away bug free.
 
Where are you that you don’t have bugs.... I am coming to stay :)

The car is extreme... the fish flys show up around mid late June and last a couple of weeks..they are attracted to light at night... keep everything dark you have few problems....our price you pay for paradise... everybody has their price for admission.

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I'm late to this but this happened to me on the Mississippi two years ago. I left my blue LED lights on while I went to a concert on the water. Came back at 1am and my boat was completely covered. Hundreds found their way in through the camper top. I was up for another hour, picking them individually and putting them in a bag. I'll bet I will still find them when I do my Spring cleaning.
 
I'm late to this but this happened to me on the Mississippi two years ago. I left my blue LED lights on while I went to a concert on the water. Came back at 1am and my boat was completely covered. Hundreds found their way in through the camper top. I was up for another hour, picking them individually and putting them in a bag. I'll bet I will still find them when I do my Spring cleaning.
Use a hand held vacuum (dust buster) to remove bugs. Just suck them and they perish. It's kinda fun getting them in before they can fly away. After a while you get good enough to suck them right out of the air.
 
When making coffee wet the filter holder so the paper filter will stick to the sides. No coffee grounds in pot. Last bit of unused ground coffee in container, pour it into new container. Throwing plastic milk containers in trash crush the containers first takes up less room. This applies to water bottles and other plastic containers to. Replacing garbage bags in waist baskets go to twice the size needed will hold to outsides better and easier to tie when hauling off boat. Install a water purifier on galley sink faucet clean water for making coffee.
 
We could probably have an entire thread on uses for zip-lock bags.

- most leftover containers will fit in a gallon size bag. So much easier than saran wrap or aluminum foil.
- Using a zip lock to hold screws, nuts and bolts keeps projects organized for re-assembly
- Fill with crushed ice for use as cold compresses or to pack around food in a cooler.
- Use as phone and tablet containers to keep them safe from splashes.
- Use to hold your muddy shoes until you get to where you can clean them.
- Ditto for diaper disposal
- Invert a bag and use as a glove to pickup doggy-doo or really anything you don't want to touch.
 
If you're heading out on a long cruise and don't want to take that many fresh eggs, break the eggs into a large bowl then ladle them into zip lock sandwich size baggies. Then lay them flat in the freezer. When they freeze, stack 'em. They're about 3/4" thick, square and stack nicely.

Each baggie holds about 3 eggs. Take out today the baggies you're going to be cooking tomorrow and store them in the refrig and they'll be thawed and ready for the frypan.
 
Get rid of the cool looking blue led cockpit lights. That is the wavelength of color that most insects are attracted to, thats why they use them in bug zappers.
is there a color that works better? white and blue are nightmares....
 

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