Same with me — I avoided water whenever I could. Then I got stationed on a ship off the coast of India. The Americans — and most of the Europeans — kept getting sick. Which made no sense. This was desalinated water in a closed, captive system. In theory, it should’ve been pristine. We ran every test imaginable. Replaced filters. Flushed all the potable lines. Installed a high-end UV system. I personally supervised the scrubbing of the potable water tanks. Still… people kept getting sick. Eventually, we found the source and I won’t describe it, because it was thoroughly disgusting. AND anything that was bottled or canned was contaminated too. But worse than that, we realized it didn’t matter what we did to the system, we couldn’t eliminate the contamination. Full stop (again I won’t describe why). So I did what any desperate sailor would do: I ordered every camping filter, tablet, and water gadget I could find and lugged a full suitcase of the stuff out to the ship. One of the cooler devices zapped saltwater to create chlorine. Neat, but pointless, we could’ve just bought chlorine tablets. We were battling three problems: 1.Bacteria 2.Sediment — not dangerous, just light rust from the pipes, but perfect for bacteria to cling to 3.Taste — the water actually tasted fine… until we added chemicals We tested every combination imaginable for weeks. The winner? 👉 Iodine followed by a pressurized camping filter. Iodine was simple. But pumping water through a filter every time you wanted a drink? Miserable. Then we found the ultimate combo: 👉 Iodine + Brita. The iodine killed everything. The Brita cleared the rust and thankfully took out the awful iodine taste. Clean. Simple. Repeatable. And it worked.

@SneedMaxx I also suggest a refrigerator with a padlock for the brita under a DO NOT TOUCH AS PER CAPTAINS ORDER sign with a box of latex gloves nearby for when you open it.