I’ve never been in the navy, but did shower once at a pay-shower. I thought it would be nice to have hot water instead of a cold creek. Hated it. Trying to feed quarters into the machine just out of reach of the shower, getting caught as I had 1 more minute of rinsing to do and it turned off.
And then had to start it all over again with the initial minimum charge.
Hahaha...I know exactly what you mean!
When I was thirteen, my Dad got orders back to the States (we were in Subic Bay) and my parents made the cool decision to take us back via a camping trip through Europe, no small deal with six kids!
One of the places we stayed early on was on the Riviera in France. Funny, I had this idea it was going to be fine white sand, but...it was all small rocks. Very odd. “This is the luxurious Riviera?” I thought.
But the thing that stuck out for me besides that odd disparity in my expectation of a beach on the Riviera was...pay showers!
My dad gave us each a coin, and we went to take showers. I found out early on that you very definitely had to carefully execute your shower or risk being covered with soap when your time ran out.
That turned out to be the norm in camping grounds we stayed at, and my father would only give us enough money for one pass under the water! I learned to hate it back then!