Drinking Water

[Teknav]

When you are in the "middle of nowhere", and you have on-board surgical instruments, you can sterilize them as follows...place them in a metal container, then pour to cover them with ETHANOL (grain alcohol or a liquor with high alcohol content). Set the alcohol in the container on fire. When the alcohol is burned out, you'll have a set of sterilized instruments; use gloves in handling them and to keep them sterile. Some surgical instruments that I carry while sailing the seven seas: Scalpel handles and sealed sterile blades, dental pics (to drain an abscess), dental poker and mirror, different sizes forceps, surgical scissors (sharp/blunt points), a few hemostats (straight and curved) and a few pre-sutured needles. I also carry a stethoscope, a sphygmomanometer and a "gluco-meter". Alternate to burning ethanol for sterilization, you could soak the instruments in iodine solution; iodine will leave a reddish/brown stain on your instruments. Mauritz

[Rakuflames]

Originally Posted by Blue Crab

Ha! You're just trying to see if I really have you on ignore.

Oh I hope you don't have me on ignore. You're so cute I could just eat you up!

With beer.

[Pete7]

Originally Posted by Teknav

Any free running fresh water must be filtered AND boiled before consumption. You may add chlorine tablets to it, or a shot of RUM after boiling. Waterfalls, pristine glacier runoffs and the like MUST be brought to a boil before consumption; at a minimum. Mauritz

Which country is this advice for please.

[zeehag]

teknav--that is disinfecting--truly sterilizing takes 20 full minuets at a rolling boil, preferably 20 minuets under steam of a full rolling boil. not even spores live thru that--flashing instruments is 10 mins in autoclave full steam ahead...

[Rakuflames]

Originally Posted by Pete7

Which country is this advice for please.

It's true anywhere on the planet. Even Antarctica has birds pooping on it.

[Blue Crab]

Originally Posted by Teknav

When you are in the "middle of nowhere", and you have on-board surgical instruments, you can sterilize them as follows...place them in a metal container, then pour to cover them with ETHANOL (grain alcohol or a liquor with high alcohol content). Set the alcohol in the container on fire. When the alcohol is burned out, you'll have a set of sterilized instruments; use gloves in handling them and to keep them sterile. Some surgical instruments that I carry while sailing the seven seas: Scalpel handles and sealed sterile blades, dental pics (to drain an abscess), dental poker and mirror, different sizes forceps, surgical scissors (sharp/blunt points), a few hemostats (straight and curved) and a few pre-sutured needles. I also carry a stethoscope, a sphygmomanometer and a "gluco-meter". Alternate to burning ethanol for sterilization, you could soak the instruments in iodine solution; iodine will leave a reddish/brown stain on your instruments. Mauritz

I that was a real candidate for thread drift of the year.

The joke's on Mauritz, tho, for going to all that trouble sterilizing scalpels. I read on CF that urine is sterile. I have a personal stash of warm urine 24/7. I pee on things when I really want them right. Guest china and crystal for sure. Plastic wine glasses and picnicware. Sometimes I rinse the dishes. It depends on my fluid intake. Obviously.

Ms Flames : I did put you on ignore. But the sheer volume of your posts, it must be several hundred a day, piqued my curiosity. Also, I haven't been called cute in years. I am old but still big and lean and keen. Think rough like sharkskin. Think the literary Jack Reacher as a septen... I'm still in denial.

[zeehag]

shark skin is good in cruising boats. less blood that way.

[Teknav]

Crabby! I was checking if you're awake! Mauritz

[Blue Crab]

Originally Posted by Teknav

Crabby! I was checking if you're awake! Mauritz

That's funny, man. I actually wondered if you written that for elsewhere and misposted!

[sailorboy1]

I'm just wondering if it is worth the time and entertainment value to go back though this thread to find out where peeing on the boat's surgical instruments became the topic.

[Rakuflames]

Originally Posted by Blue Crab

I that was a real candidate for thread drift of the year.

...

Ms Flames

C'mon over here. The water's almost hot.

Filter me if you want. I personally was delighted to read about you peeing on your dishes.

[Teknav]

...OK, folks...let's get back on track about drinking water, and make Crabby happy. If the water is free flowing, it still needs to be treated before drinking it. Mauritz

[Jimbo485]

I find a lot of this pretty incredible. For many many thousands of years, humans were drinking water straight from streams without additional treatment. Some people died off and evolution got the rest of us used to it and our stomachs have been perfected to handle it ever since. If you have had a life wrapped in cotton wool and never been exposed to a natural environment, you have to decide if you want to toughen your body up again to the normal level of an evolved human being or continue to be a 1st world cotton wool baby.

I still do the natural human thing. Admittedly, a couple of decades in the 3rd world probably helped my iron guts. Taking antibiotics less than 10 times in my entire life also ensures that my body is used to fixing itself. A few traces of pelican **** only help to make your body stronger. When hiking inland in untouched wilderness, there is nothing nicer than swimming in the freshwater and drinking it at the same time.

And if you get the dribblies every couple of years, suck it up and know that your body just got a little stronger again.

[Blue Crab]

Originally Posted by Jimbo485

... When hiking inland in untouched wilderness, there is nothing nicer than swimming in the freshwater and drinking it at the same time. ...And if you get the dribblies every couple of years, suck it up and know that your body just got a little stronger again.

the dribblies?

[Teknav]

The dribblies = Montezuma's revenge (diarrhea), I guess. Waterborne diseases are not to be forgotten, not to mention excrement from animals and who knows what else in the water. Down the hatch at your own peril; I wouldn't do it, though. Mauritz