"No, I don't thank you for the fish at all" (notindetroit)
07/02/2015 at 11:44 • Filed to: None
0
7|
"No, I don't thank you for the fish at all" (notindetroit)
07/02/2015 at 11:44 • Filed to: None | 0
| 7 |
Oh God !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!!
!!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , this is a guide on how to save water while showering when you’re on a submarine, or in any other situation where water is precious and must be preserved and/or rationed at nearly any cost, but not quite when it reaches the point where you have to sacrifice personal hygiene to cover the tip in that cost.
If You Don’t Have to, Don’t
No, I’m not talking about skipping showers altogether (I’ll cover that later). I’m talking about skipping skipping showers, uh, so that your body doesn’t have to not not stink.
I’m guessing that the number of people who are actually onboard a submarine reading this right now is exact zero because I’m also guessing the WiFi strength of a submarine 500 feet below the ocean’s surface is going to be very poor. So chances are very few if any of you out there are actually in such dire need to ration water that you need to skip showering completely, or if you’re say Wes Siler and camping in the middle of the woods there’s nobody around to complain about your stink anyway.
So, yeah, if you can, take a shower. Don’t go overboard but clean yourself up all properly and stuff and take as long as you need.
Skip the Hair
Here’s a fun personal fact: until recently I had grown my hair out to a total of about 14 inches so I can donate it to charitable causes. In the intervening time it was a bitch to wash and doubled my shower time (I was also frequently mistaken for a woman, so I started growing out a beard, but then people started mistaking me for a hipster so I started shaving again). Washing hair takes a good chunk of time and water from your shower experience, so if you’re that tight on resources you might want to skip it. Yes, hair does stink after a while but if you’re on a submarine (and the US Navy) you probably have it in a buzzcut and under a cap anyway, which can mitigate stink for longer periods than other areas of your body. A short buzzcut will also greatly reduce the amount of time and water needed to wash your hair to the point where you can just super-quickly run it over with some shampoo or soap and be done. The same goes for facial hair - buzz it or skip it.
Prioritize
Ah yes, the magical panacea for everything efficiency-related. Chances are everyone reading this is at least old enough to start thinking about a driving permit, which means you’re old enough to know your body pretty well. You know what areas stink. Wash those areas first. You can pretty much skip anything else.
Lather Before Water
Applying soap before you even turn on the water will, obviously, duh, save water.
Skip the Daily Shower, but Try To Shower Every Other Day
Human odors and stink can typically remain tolerable after skipping a day or even two, but anything more than that and you risk being called out stinking like rotten rat testicles (or whatever language was used in that article, I don’t know I don’t have it up right now). Obviously if you’re on an assignment that involves frequent activity or movement the amount of time that stink remains tolerable gets shortened.
jariten1781
> No, I don't thank you for the fish at all
07/02/2015 at 12:02 |
|
My process on board was to wet towel then leave it on a steam pipe to heat up. Then use that to wet and lather then I’d quick rinse. Shampoo’d only if we were heading to port.
Guys who stunk got Fabreeze bombed. Wait until they’re in their rack; couple dudes hold them down and someone just drenches them in Fabreeze. Apparently that stings when it gets in your eyes and it doesn’t taste great either. Couple times of that and they’ll start showering.
Also, we could get internet when at PD and not on mission so it’s not impossible one could read it.
thebigbossyboss
> jariten1781
07/02/2015 at 12:13 |
|
How often would you shower? Canada uses old broken out of date submarines. I heard the shower ration was 1x per week.
|
jariten1781
> thebigbossyboss
07/02/2015 at 12:23 |
|
Usually every other watch or so...so 36 hours. Our distillation plan only went out a couple times in the 4ish years I was on board so water rationing was rare. Other boats weren’t so lucky and I had some colleagues tell stories of 1 per week type rationing. Our O2 generator on the other hand....
|
thebigbossyboss
> jariten1781
07/02/2015 at 12:26 |
|
Oh ok. Cool. A) thank you for your service and B) thanks for enlightening me about life 20,000 leagues under the sea.
Clown Shoe Pilot
> thebigbossyboss
07/03/2015 at 20:42 |
|
20K leagues is a distance traveled, not a depth. If you pick a spot in the ocean and then go to a depth of 20K leagues, you’ll end up going all the way through the earth and then an additional 62K miles out into space. That’s 40K more miles altitude than you need to be in geostationary orbit.
|
thebigbossyboss
> Clown Shoe Pilot
07/03/2015 at 23:18 |
|
I was referencing this.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt004667…
|
Clown Shoe Pilot
> thebigbossyboss
07/04/2015 at 08:53 |
|
I’m aware of the Jules Verne Novel (and later movie adaptation). The way your comment was phrased though, it really reads like 20K leagues is a depth.
It’s a common thing. SNL even has a skit about it 20+ years ago. If NBC was cool, I could embed a youtube link, but instead I have to give you a link to the transcript- http://snltranscripts.jt.org/93/93qleagues.…