“Mount Washmore”

Laundry is an ongoing experiment/experience/exasperation. With 6 people on board of whom 5 are female, we do generate a fair amount.
Franci took up the washing chore while we were still in Cape Town. She used the “Sputnik” washing machine. “Dankie Susan en Abe, ons gebruik dit baie!”. She used about 4 liters of warm water and a spoonful of detergent per load. The “Sputnik” is a little round ball with a lid, mounted on a stand. Attached to the ball is a handle with which you spin the ball for about 3 minutes. You then need to do another spin with fresh water to rinse all the soap out. All wringing of wet clothes have to be done by hand. This worked really well when we still had an abundance of fresh water.
While at sea, we decided to try another way instead. Here, you put all the clothes in a black bag with some water and ammonia. This bag then gets put out on deck, where the sun heats up the water and the boat provides the rocking motion. After sufficient time, you take the clothes out, hang them up and allow the ammonia to evaporate. We’ve only done this once so far. Franci added a little too much ammonia and she did it inside. Whew!!! All the portholes were hastily opened and Franci and the bag were promptly ejected. The clothes seemed fine though, and afterwards had no smell of ammonia.
I’m not all that convinced that the clothes were really clean. I want to repeat this experiment tomorrow, but in the Sputnik with a little bit of detergent as well. Will let you know how it turned out.