So in the first session of a new campaign I've recently joined, the party started out by signing a mortgage in order to buy a ship and equipment for underwater ruin exploration. The terms for that were 19,000gp in capital at 50% interest compounded every two months.
Now, we've accepted our first job as ship owners, which is basically to deliver this scholar from Town A to Dungeon B. The issue is that between the two is a two-week sea voyage, so a four week round trip. That's a lot of sailing, boats aren't usually know for their plumbing.
Anyway, the topic of discussion is what are some good ways to pass the time and make long sea voyages less like being alone in the middle of an ocean? I've done a bit of thinking on this, and here are some of my ideas, though most of them involve making the cleric/wizard do the work:
Bathing: A Collapsible bathtub is 15gp, soap 1cp for a block that lasts 50 uses. Sea Water probably isn't what you want to bathe in, though, so this is likely a job for a Cleric and Create Water.
Laundry: Either you can wash them with soap and created water, or have the wizard use Prestidigitation.
Food: This is kind of a sticking point. I suppose trail rations are alright, though the cleric can't cast Create Food and Water yet.
Entertainment: Well, a deck of cards can be had for as low as 1sp, as can a board game. Games like Tennis, Croquet, and Polo are likely out, though the motion of the boat on the water could make a 5sp bowling set quite interesting. There's also the Dartboard set, which is a pretty replayable source of entertainment.
So how would your characters manage on a longer sea voyage? Would they manage or would they go crazy and jump into the sea chasing mermaids? And did our party get ripped off on that mortgage deal?
Level?
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Alignments?
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Just the maintenance of the ship will keep most people occupied for a lot of the time. Cleaning, food preparation, repairs ... that can keep you going for a while.
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As soon as you leave sight of port...
Hoist the jolly rodger..break out the parrots, hooks and peglegs, and become a random encounter!
Well looking at actual life at sea...
As Zhayne says, a huge amount of time went to ships maintenance, food preparation, cleaning/oiling the guns, preparing food, swabbing the deck, sewing ripped sails, coiling rope, doing blacksmithy work, keeping the food stores free of vermin. Doing all this occupies 80+% of the time spent as activities aboard ship - this is non-stop activity.
Everyone on board the ship would be expected to operate watch shifts, in addition to be awake and working during the normal operational hours of the ship. You'd work a full shift everyday, and probably once every 3 days you also pull a 6 hour watch shift with a minimal crew to maintain all ships operations - steerage, adjust rigging, navigation duties, etc.
The whole art of macrame - knot tying is pretty much an invention of sailors, since tying knots is at the heart of sailing ship maintenance, especially of the rigging, and a goodly amount of their time spent on ship was on activities like macrame.
Not just sailors, but a good many people including sailors in times past spent large amounts of free time gambling - cards, dice, cock fights and anything else they could think to bet on. While less condoned on naval ships, at least a pirate ship might spend an equal amount of time drinking rum and passing out.
Regarding hygiene, you say you don't want to bathe in salt water, which is probably true, but I know that the US Navy, up to the 1960's had shower facilities for bathing, but it was using salt water. I imagine modern naval ships with better recycling technology probably relies on fresh water these days, but throughout most all of historical naval hygiene, you would have been bathing in (most likely) cold, salt water and soap. (Yes, in D&D its nothing for a divine caster to Create Water to offer this instead, but the assumption that bathing was done with fresh water on ships is a very modern concept.)
If you watch any of the Horatio Hornblower movies there are other activities done in that series - trigonometry and navigation lessons for ships officers (taking tests, studying trig functions) actively learning as if in school to maintain their technical sea skills - were a thing that naval officers actually had to do on ship.
With spellcasters, much of the mundane might be replaced with simple spells, and magic could also add to the entertainment activities on ship, but just looking what kind of activities are done on a mundane, historical ship - voyages are indeed long, but hardly boring, most people wished there were more hours to sleep, instead of arduously working all your time away.
Depending on the size of your boat and the number of your crew keeping the ship in sailing shape will take probably around 10-12 hours a day of work. There isn't much free time, nor did sailors worry about clean clothes or bathing. These were luxeries that they mostly just couldn't afford. The captain and officers might manage it, but not the majority of the crew didn't. The passenger, being paid cargo, might get to enjoy these benefits as well. Depending on the price he paid.
The rest of the time you'd probably gamble and play small games with what little time was available. It was boring, but people did it for hundreds of years. You probably would hire a bard or other entertainer to be on ship and entertain the men during their down time.