“Only acceptable on the boat”

Living on a 70ft racing yacht for long periods of time means that you have to adapt your lifestyle somewhat. As the angles, temperatures and sleep patterns constantly change, standards slip and before you know it, we find ourselves doing something that is perfectly acceptable on the boat but that we’d consider ridiculous or bizarre on land. What is quite amusing is how many of these become unacceptable as soon as you step on land, but also how some of them don’t. So here we go, things that are only acceptable on the boat. Warning: it’s a tad grim…

1. Running out into the street in your underwear with shower gel in hand whenever it starts raining
2. Mopping the sweat from your chest with a tea towel during lunch
3. Climbing over people in an up close and personal manner when manoeuvring around the boat
4. Preening/grooming yourself in public, including open air waxing & shaving
5. Getting undressed for dinner 
6. Pooing behind a curtain (!)
7. Announcing your presence whenever you arrive somewhere after dark 
8. The prolific application of wet wipes being considered a “shower”
9. Horror at the thought of brushing your hair inside rather than outside
10. Holding out until 4.30am for breakfast
11. Putting on the same clothes every day for up to 2 weeks
12. So looking forward to putting clean underwear on that you tell everyone before you do so AND then once you’ve done so. This is world news people! 
13. Wandering around in your sports bra most of the time
14. Bursting into song or dance at any given moment
15. Sharing a bed someone but never at the same time 
16. Brushing your teeth once every 24hours is considered frequent
17. If someone tells you to grind, you jump up and wave your arms around in a circular motion rather than errr..grinding
18. Pumping the toilet a minimum of 70 times just to wash away the…
19. Purposefully waking people up from sleep at 2am
20. Participating in a stampede at the prospect of being able to charge a USB pack
21. A fan being a suitable thing to cuddle to send you to sleep
22. Febreezing and hanging out a sheet to air for an hour constitutes as “washing”
23. Taking up and replacing your floorboards every 6 hours or so
24. Emptying water from your basement, every 6 hours or so
25. Cleaning the loos and anti-backing surfaces 5x a day is not considered to be OCD
26. Recording where you are on the hour, every hour in a special book
27. Biscuits being an appropriate wake-up snack…nom nom nom…
28. Putting your toilet paper in its own special bag rather than down the loo
29. An improvement in your bowel movements being news that must be announced to the rest of the crew
30. Getting overexcited about ANYTHING cold or hot depending on the Leg
31. A 14 hour sleep being seen as a deserved reward for having stayed awake for a 10 hours in a row
32. Bracing yourself against a wall being necessary to go to the loo
33. Walking on walls. Try that at home!
34. Falling asleep in public as soon as you go outside or when you’re supposed to being something (oooops)