Tap water - fit to drink?

[AndrewB]

Our marina in Greece warns tap water is not fit to drink. But its a chore humping supermarket water back to the boat.

SWMBO thinks a good in-line filter (such as the Seagull IV system) might make it OK. I said I would want the filtered water tested.

Can anyone recommend a water testing service, either in Greece or the UK?

 

[jordanbasset]

Our marina in Greece warns tap water is not fit to drink. But its a chore humping supermarket water back to the boat.

SWMBO thinks a good in-line filter (such as the Seagull IV system) might make it OK. I said I would want the filtered water tested.

Can anyone recommend a water testing service, either in Greece or the UK?

Does not help you with your specific enquiry but we used the Seaull 1V for 4 years on our boat, never had a problem drinking straight from the filtered tap. Never actually got it tested but think if there was a problem we would have noticed it

 

[Tony Cross]

Would you be in Gouvia by any chance? Corfu is the only Greek island I know of where you can't drink the water. Tap water here on Crete is hard but it's drinkable.

 

[vyv_cox]

We have a Seagull IV. It is excellent so long as the water has no soluble contaminants such as salt. In Leros the water is distinctly brackish, which the Seagull makes no impression upon. We now buy good water in Leros at the beginning of the season and top up as we go, finding that most other islands in the Aegean have reasonable fresh supplies.

 

[rivonia]

As TC has already stated here in Crete we can drink the water-which we do. However it surprises me to see so many Yachties here bring so many bottles of water on board,

Peter

 

[Chatelaine60]

Personally I would not like to drink tapwater in LEROS, it tastes disgusting, Chios and especially not in Oinoussa. we filled a 5 litre bottle up there last week and the water was green with lots of unidentified bits floating around! And we do have a water filter system on board.

 

[BurnitBlue]

Yippes, now i find that i have probably done harm to my health.

 

[Marsupial]

Our marina in Greece warns tap water is not fit to drink. But its a chore humping supermarket water back to the boat.

SWMBO thinks a good in-line filter (such as the Seagull IV system) might make it OK. I said I would want the filtered water tested.

Can anyone recommend a water testing service, either in Greece or the UK?

The problem with water is you dont know if its safe or not until its too late, I put a link on here some time ago to a site that compares filter systems and shows how effective (or not) filters are at removing the really bad stuff - the short answer is that they're NOT unless its an RO filter, even then not all the nasties are removed, the seagull is NOT an RO filter its a sediment filter and scores highly for its type but not high enough. Sediment filters don't remove any viruses or bacteria.

Leros is a definite no no, even they admit it! so credit where its due.

Water testing takes time so even if you did fill the boat with petrie dishes the results would come out long after that batch of water was exhausted so its not a very practical way to go.

Certainly the quality of water varies greatly in the Med and while most of it can be drunk, our cat drinks muddy water from puddles and hasn't died YET, bottled water does provide some confidence as to the quality of what you are ingesting.

We are very suspicious of the sources used to draw the water supplied by tankers as often suppliers are evasive about where it comes from so is it: Rain water, well water, Tap, River or sewer? - we use an RO water maker and Mrs buys bottled water in the belief that its the safest option. In local Hotels where water from a potable source (the mains) is stored in roof top tanks the advice is dont drink the stuff.

Off shore we boil veg in sea water but would n't dream of doing that in the Med.

Some live a long time drinking brackish water, others catch a bug and die - your choice.

edit: for information try this one http://www.purewaterdynamics.com/images/Promo_WaterSystems2.jpg

 

[nigelmercier]

Our marina in Greece warns tap water is not fit to drink. But its a chore humping supermarket water back to the boat.

Buy a folding trolley. I have one like this and it is great for lugging heavy items home:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/B001UGEU4U/dolcetto-21

 

[sailinglegend420]

.....Can anyone recommend a water testing service, either in Greece or the UK?

We wintered in Alanya in Turkey where the water is not fit to drink. So this year we bought a TDS meter - Total Dissolved Solids - for less than £20, its about the size of a Pentel permanent marker. Drinking water should be less than 500 parts per million (PPM). Water unfit for human consumption is 1000 PPM - Alanya was 950 PPM!!

If you have an RO watermaker then a TDS meter is also a very useful device to test when the membrane is starting to deteriorate.

 

[charles_reed]

Personally I would not like to drink tapwater in LEROS, it tastes disgusting, Chios and especially not in Oinoussa. we filled a 5 litre bottle up there last week and the water was green with lots of unidentified bits floating around! And we do have a water filter system on board.

in the centre of town are the 5 drinking water taps - all the locals use them and I'd agree the normal supply is only good for washing.

 

[Steve C Cronin]

Would you be in Gouvia by any chance? Corfu is the only Greek island I know of where you can't drink the water. Tap water here on Crete is hard but it's drinkable.

There are two suppl systems in Gouvia. One is only fit for flushing toilets but the other which on a pre-pay basis is treated and quite pallatable.

 

[capnsensible]

This subject pops up from time to time....

My personal view.

Ive seen inside a number of water tanks on yachts over the years...eek. I don't drink any tank water unless its been boiled.

Lived on board since 1997 and spend nearly every day since on one boat or another. Bottled for me every time, though I guess you could get to be very good at recognising the symptoms of super galloping gut rot.

Good luck........

 

[blueglass]

There are two suppl systems in Gouvia. One is only fit for flushing toilets but the other which on a pre-pay basis is treated and quite pallatable.

we always filled our tanks with the prepaid Gouvia water , but only drink it neat after its been through the seagull system which I swear by.

 

[VicMallows]

There has to be a psychological element to this. Wife will not drink a drop of tap water once we leave UK for Europe. (for some inexplicable reason water in the US is considered OK ). As long as it comes out of a fast flowing tap I am happy .... but I guess some stomachs are more cast-iron than others.

 

[ianabc]

Standard under sink filters ...

We use 2 of these in series

DuPont™ Universal Drinking Water Carbon Block Cartridge – DWC50001

Filters up to 550 gallons

Removes 99.99% of microbial cysts, cryptosporidium and giardia

Universal 10-inch cartridge designed to fit all DuPont™ Universal Drinking Water Systems

Lasts up to 6 months

 

[Swagman]

Five years back when cruising we purchased one of those cheap TDS meters just to check on water quality. Of course they don't check on nasties in the water, but we found the higher the reading the ranker the water.
FYI Evian rated around 100
Our small water maker rated 110/120
Tap water in Hampshire rated 220
Marina water UK typically 400/600 but typically first 10 minutes flow over 1000!
Marina water Turkey / Greece 600/1000 but typically first 10 minutes flow 1500+!!!
Using the water maker daily we kept our tank reading below 200.
Cheers
John

 

[AndrewB]

Thanks Swagman, that's what I'm looking for. Though on your evidence it doesn't sound as if I need bother.

 

[AntarcticPilot]

I stayed in a hotel in Hong Kong a few years ago. On my wife's advice, I don't usually drink unboiled water in Hong Kong, but of course in a Hotel, there wasn't always the facility! So I asked about the water, and was told that they didn't advise people from overseas to drink it. However, the point was made that the water was perfectly OK, and drunk on a daily basis by millions of people - but that those people probably had acquired immunities to a different set of bugs from the ones I was used to! The manager put it like this: "I could drink the water without it doing me any harm, but I wouldn't rely on it being the same for you!" UK tap-water isn't free of bugs, but the levels are kept below very low threshold values - but so are the levels for potable water in all EU countries; the levels are set by EU regulations. But the bugs you encounter may not be the ones that your immune system is used to, so what would be harmless levels of bugs in the UK might give you a bad time elsewhere.

TDS is not a reliable indication of potable water; it depends what the dissolved solids are! It is useful for a desalination plant, where you know what the input is (more or less), but fresh water may well have high levels of carbonate or sulphate without there being any problem at all.

 

[Ariadne]

Interesting views on polluting the world with 1000's of used plastic water and finding a good reason to so.

The 4 of us have lived on board for over 7 years, traveled both sides of the Med as far in as Greece, done Morocco and The Gambia and we are now in the Caribbean. We have always drunk the local tap water, and we use our water tanks all the time, we have not had any serious problems with any of the water we have drunk. We did have Banjul belly, but then everybody does and after about 7-10 days it cleared up and life carried on as normal.

We use a Jabsco in-line filter,now and again we treat our tanks to a dose of Milton tablets; that's it. Nobody has died yet, we have never been incapacitated by drinking water we've taken on board; more importantly, we don't have to dispose of plastic bottles and my family are as fit as ever.

So long as you take on board potable water, letting the tap run for about 5-10 minutes to get all the junk out (although in Africa if you do this,you'll possibly get eaten by the locals for wasting water!) you shouldn't have a problem, if the locals drink it you can. You do if you put ice in your drinks in any case!