Although filmed on an uninhabited atoll, the fresh water information is valuable for any cruiser anywhere in the world; in the middle of an ocean, remote isl...

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you came here to do laundry thank them

off our communal well on target here

right here that's a good bucket now you

can get a good picture took a little

practice to get this thing going in

upside-down to scoop the water that's

about how many times it took me to catch

on oh you have to go in upside down all

right Keith we're gonna do a little

science project here can you get me some

water yeah I'm gonna test the water and

see if there's any microbes in it or

actually more specific

hydrogen sulfide producing bacteria and

that would include most pathogens and

most coral atolls where people live

there's pigs chickens people everything

poops on the ground and then goes into

the groundwater here there's nobody and

so it'll be interesting to see if

there's anything living in this

freshwater well you know on all the

islands on all the coral atolls they

drink the water after they boil it they

know to boil it they don't have access

to chlorine so they boil it and then

that's the drinking water that's all

that they have other thing coconuts okay

then this stuff is like it's a gold

powder yeah and what it does is

oxygenate the water so

there's microbes in here it encourages

them to grow 24 hours although depending

some really nasty water which actually

came from the public water supply in

ebuy Marshall Islands about 3 hours to

turn black and that's how nasty

contaminated the public water supply was

okay so that's a gold color and 24 hours

we'll check it if it's black

you know there's microbes in it it

smells like a nasty swamp

you know hydrogen sulfide smells rotten

egg

okay the next test TDS total display

solids okay right now it's whoa it's

about high 380 to 384 but you know at

385 but you have been stirring it up

quite a bit 385 384 yeah so I might come

back at high tide because I'm gonna

measure now the depth at low tide it is

low tide right now and I'll measure the

depth and then at high tide come back

and see how much it raisins but the

ocean tide now in small island

Philippines I tested the water that came

out of the faucet there it's very

calcified water and that tested at 285

parts per million so this is certainly

has more nutrients in it more something

more solids mineral water

rainwater and rainwater which keeps

coming down here in Chagos I'm sure the

well was onshore going to be very full

all of our buckets are full on the boat

all of our tanks are full all of our

clothes are washed we just don't need

any more water but this is the test tube

from yesterday 24 hours later it's very

black in color that's no big surprise

I've never touched it well water on a

coral atoll that didn't turn black that

wasn't full of hydrogen sulfide

producing bacteria but this test is made

by a detached company H a CH and the

individual packet inside is called path

O screen so it's something fun for me to

do while we're all cruising around in

the islands in but in particular I use

this for testing dock water at the

marinas and I can tell you all through

Thailand don't drink the water

Malaysia is very drinkable is very good

water in Malaysia throughout Indonesia

forget it add chlorine or boil the water

and we'll test this rain water for total

displace olives PDS oh that's nice

nice to see I'll push the hold on here

it's coming down at 4

four parts per million that's about what

you get when you buy drinking water in

the bottle

certainly not the mineral water but

distilled water and that's a quite

suitable for battery the water putting

in your batteries reverse osmosis water

doesn't even get down that much but we

have all these yachts around us that

have tremendous reverse osmosis

capabilities but they're up around 100

parts per million one hundred and fifty

we've had some people service their RL

water I swear it tasted like seawater

they didn't realize how bad their

membrane had gotten but not all

rainwater is dis clean this is very

unusual we're out in the middle of the

Indian Ocean

there's no cities there's no pollution

out here most of it's all been washed

out of the atmosphere by the time it

gets to this desolate place if you go to

Indonesia

I didn't even test the water the

rainwater that we caught there it was so

full of just contaminants in the bucket

you could see mud around the bucket and

if you taste it it tasted like auto

emissions or like a forest fire just

nasty stuff I wouldn't put that in my

tank I didn't even want to test it to

see what it looked like so rain water

all around the world is not the same do

you really have to be in a very desolate

area like out here in Chagos to get good

clean rain water even if it rains for an

hour - in some of these places like

Indonesia that isn't enough to wash all

the contaminants out of the atmosphere

if I were to use the water from the well

on this coral atoll or any other

pressure bowl water source would

certainly add bleach to the water and I

would follow the World Health

Organization guidelines of adding one

eighth of a cup of sodium hypochlorite

to 50 gallons of water since our tanks

are 40 gallons were actually adding a

higher concentration than what is

recommended but that's fine but there's

ever a chlorine smell or taste it gasses

off very quickly it takes two or three

days to dissipate to a low level and

what I try to do in our tank water is to

get the level up to the bottom

coloration on the swimming pool test get

one point one level and to test the

water I add water into the test tube up

to the mark and then add four drops of

the test solution the right side the pH

test I really don't care about I never

use it

natives on all these coral atoll they

know about the contaminants in their

well water so they always boil it they

have lots of coconut husks to use as

fuel for their fires in the July 2015

issue of profitable sailor magazine I

had an article called water what's in it

it covers a lot of these same things

that we talked about just now in this

video but you can always go back to

practical sailor and do a search for

water what's in it or my name Patrick

Childress and the article will come up

that'll be a good handy reference in the

future thank you very much for watching

I hope this video has been helpful for

you if it has been please give us a

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soon

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