Line Dried Laundry Woes

So far one of the biggest changes in my life is related to laundry.  Our house has a great new washing machine but no dryer.  I, personally, love my clothes fresh from the dryer.  I love how soft and warm they are but mostly I love how DRY they are.  Here we have a clothes line.  It is more economical and environmental.  People keep telling me how much they love hang drying their clothes.  I suspect that these people all have dryers and have forgotten the reasons why they bought that dryer in the first place.

This is what I love about doing laundry in my island home:

Here are my top issues with hanging dry my clothes:

1.  Rain - I feel like I need to do my laundry first thing in the morning so that it has plenty of time to dry.  Granted, when the sun is out, most of it dries in about an hour with only some thick shorts and towels taking longer.  So far, I've done about 4 loads of laundry and despite the fact that we have been told that its the rainy season, it has been amazingly dry here (that is without rain...not without humidity), it has rained twice while I had clothes hanging to dry.  The first time was just a brief shower but today was torrential rain all morning and it still looks pretty dreary.  My clothesline looks like this:

And my laundry looks like this:

 Needless to say, it is not drying like I had hoped.

2.  My second issue with hanging laundry is the crunch.  No matter what I try, my laundry ends up lacking in softness.  Google had a few suggestions for remedying this situation.  I've tried them with a slight improvement but I still think my laundry is not nearly as soft as from the dryer.  Some of the suggestions that I've been trying:

1. Use less detergent
2. Add some white vinegar
3. Shake out the laundry before hanging it

There were some other suggestions that I have no control over like hanging them only on windy days.

3.  One of my favorite thigs about clothes from the dryer is how the fabric becomes tighter and everything fits like it did when I bought it.  When I hang my clothes, they seem to keep getting a little looser and more stretched out.

4.  I've realized that I have limited space on my clothes line.  I cannot hang a full load at one time, especially when that load contains a dozen tiny pairs of underwear and a dozen more tiny shirts.  This leave me 2 choices, I can try to hang it in shifts, which only works when it is really sunny or I have to do laundry more frequently in smaller loads.  The problem is that electricity here is extremely expensive and it seems so inefficient.

I would welcome any suggestions on how to make my line-dried clothes soft and fresh like the ones I see on TV and hear about in people's memories.


As I am finishing up this post, I realize that my Roatan posts are more negative than positive.  I try to be a "glass-is-half-full" type of person.  I also don't ever want my friends and family to worry that I am unhappy.  Please keep in mind that I live on a tropical, Caribbean island.  This is paradise.  This has been our dream for years.  As with most dreams, the reality is not exactly the same as the dream.  A week and a half into living our dream, I am still experiencing some culture shock in learning how to live here.  Most importantly, if I only made posts about how beautiful it is to live on this wonderfully green, lush island that is ringed in white sand beaches and surrounded by the clearest, bluest water in the world, populated by colorful and delicious fish, everyone would hate and resent me.  I save that stuff for facebook.