A lady sent me an email asking for my thoughts about living on boats as her son wants to live on one when he retires in a few years. As long as I wrote it I may as well also post it here.
Living on a boat lives in the brains of two very different types of people. The hard core water lover and the dreamers that have some sort of romantic notion about it.
The hard core water lover that has lived on boats for years accept the harsh realities and dangers of living on a boat and they stick with it anyway. Boats, unless a person can afford a large one of sixty feet or bigger are very limited. You have to take up a pretty basic lifestyle because you just can’t have all the things you have in a home.
Times have changed, things have changed. It’s getting very expensive to keep a boat that you can’t easily move around on a trailer. Moorage rates are going way up, yard and pullout fees are going way up. Many marinas don’t allow liveaboards anymore. Regulations are becoming more complex and of course more expensive.
That is why I sold my boat, it’s just too expensive to own one. One advantage to owning one though is that you don’t have to mow the grass. (laughs)…. If a person wants to just live on a boat and not take the boat anywhere I suggest a houseboat or barge, but they don’t allow them in the two local marinas. The liveaboard population in the Port Angeles marina is going down, it’s just getting to expensive.
There may be cheap places in the states where a person could still live on a boat but I don’t know where. I’ve known a lot of folks that live on sailboats and they spend a lot of time at sea traveling around the world so that saves them mooring fees. But doing so is also getting more complex, and at some locations, dangerous. Roaming the high seas requires the mindset that you may die any moment and being okay with it. Roaming the high seas as also seldom as romantic as it seems. Your foundation is a large body of water at the whims of nature and it doesn’t sit still very much. A long cruise often consists of days and days of boredom and constant watch to navigation and such thing as that. But to offset that boredom are days and moments of sheer terror. (laughs)…. Such a life is only for the die hard mariners.
Living on a boat in the Puget Sound or such an area as it requires at least a sixty foot boat in my mind. My 32 foot boat really took a beating out there at times and I would never own that size of boat again. I feel much safer in my 18 foot boat in a three foot chop. Living on a power boat is expensive to take cruising, even if it has a diesel engine in it. Boats are not fuel efficient, period. And fuel in marinas is more expensive as they have little competition.
I love the water, but I would never live on a boat again, they are just too limiting, and sometimes too damn scary, even as fearless as I am. A person can always rent a houseboat for a week or two each year to fulfill that need in them, it’s much cheaper than owning one.
I’m sticking with my 18 foot boat because it is so much more versatile. I can trailer it to many places and that is a lot cheaper than taking a larger power boat to the same place. Besides, my small boat can also go to the lakes, it’s not limited to just the oceans.
I’ve bought a camp trailer that I’m restoring for day trips to the beaches and overnight camping in the mountains. I have a lifetime National Parks pass so I get in them free and the campsites are half price to me. A small boat and a camper just makes more sense to me these days.
Not that I think that folks with lots of money shouldn’t live on boats, to each his/her own. They can always try it for a while to see how it works out and sell the boat if it doesn’t, they won’t lose too much money on it. (laughs)….
Actually, I made money on both of my big boats, but I just got very lucky, that isn’t the norm. The norm is to lose money, a lot of it. These are my thoughts on living on boats, but don’t pay any attention to me because I’m crazy. (laughs)….. Bill
[Added note]
I do know some couples that still live on their boats, they are in the forty to fifty foot range and are well designed. But they just live on them and seldom take them out. Yesterday afternoon a boat in the marina burned up, fires on boats are very scary. I haven’t been down to see it yet but I’m guessing from what I heard on the radio that it’s a total loss.
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12 comments:
Great post BBC
I've always wondered about how that worked. I'm not really a water person but the concept is fascinating. Makes me wonder how they survived on boats 500 years ago.
Hammer, many of them didn't survive. Boats still go down all the time.
If a person is going to live on a boat in the 30 to 40 foot range and do any traveling I think it should be a sailboat.
They handle stormy water better. I've talked to a lot of world travelers and they all have stories to tell. Some have gotten to a county, sold the boat and flew home.
On the other hand I know a crusty old man that has lived on his sailboat for 30 years, he plans on dying on it out there somewhere. He left last year toward New Zealand and I don't expect to ever see him again.
I have all the respect in the world for Mother Ocean. So much so that I know I'd never be able to live out on her.
I've never owned a boat, I've always enjoyed floating around on them, but other than a rowboat, I've never even driven one. (Can you call it "driving" a rowboat?)
On the other hand, I know of people who live in their RV's, or camp trailers. I couldn't do that either. I like my house to stay put.
Living on a boat...
It would have to be an exceptional person that liked water and confinement. Even the larger boats/yachts aren't big enough.
Maybe a cruise ship would be okay.
Good write up, bbc!
I could never live on a boat for the simply fact I get seasick. It has to be a hard life although you have alot of freedom. I love speed boats, used to ride them when I lived in FLa and never got sick. Have a good weekend BBC
Oh, and tomorrow we get an update on the camp trailer re-build?
*nag*
I have never actually fully lived on a boat, I have way too much stuff for that. A forty year collection of tools and shop equipment takes up a fair amount of space, not to mention the things I collect to tinker and invent with. Until I acquired my property I rented a large shop and built an apartment inside it. Between that and the boat that I did spend a lot of days and nights on, it was a pretty good deal until it started getting too expensive. I’m not a bit sorry I sold the boat even though I saw it as my spiritual retreat. Having property on land is much more important to me.
My husband's family had a weekend houseboat. It sank in little pieces during Hurricane Agnes in 1972. Being from the mountains, I've always preferred cozy cabins to watercraft.
That was an excellent post.
I would suppose people that think they would like to live on boats are the same people that think they would be happy living on a ranch in isolation. It's never as romantic as one thinks.
I would like to own a sailboat, but I'm smart enough to understand that I know enough to get me very killed very quickly. I would like to learn more.
Very informative post.
I've never thought of living on a boat - had in my head a "romantic" thought of sailing around the world - but never serious.
I like being on the water and don't get the opportunity very often. I like speedboats. Yachts make me sick with the 'rolling' motion. A launch might be nice for a weekend away.....
Nice to have you back by the way =)
This post brings me 'out of character.'
I had a 32' sailboat and sailed from Point Loma in San Diego to a small port below Pearl Harbor, Ha., then another thousand miles to Palmyra Atoll, back in '98. I actually came across some 'ruffians' between Ha. & Palmyra, but learned that disconnecting the battery - (GPS, radio, and everything electrical) kept me 'hidden' from these thieves and killers on the high seas. It takes a crafty person to survive out in the salty blue yonder. I had a good amount of $ stashed to buy my life with (if needed). We are all animals, we must learn what the risks are and what risks we can afford to take. THAT is life. At least that is how I've always found it. I am lucky and a bit clever. I never did pay a ransome for my own life. I sailed back with 3 other new friends (whom I met at Palmyra) to Hawaii.
I will do it again, but would sail from Ha. to Polynesia, to Pitcairne, to the Cook Islands and finally New Zealand where I would sell the boat and fly back home (first class :).
I loved fishing from the bow, the flying fish, the dolphins, the solitude and the beautiful view of a vast 'empty' pacific. I loved the fact that I was at the mercy of the elements, mother nature, and the ugliest of all; man. I will do it again, some day soon. Alright not 'til 2009. No doubt about it.
Peace
I loved this post, BBC.
I grew up around and on boats and always wondered about folks who lived on them. Not the lake people, the people who lived in them on salt water where I grew up. There are some people who live on their boats in Charleston, but Chas. is a hurricane magnet. We always had to take our boat and anchor it in the middle of the river when the hurricanes came. I certainly wouldn't want to be on one during that sort of storm.
But then, when I was living in England, they have these wonderful barges that just stay in the canals. Some are quite opulent. I can see living in one of those. Maybe a nice mooring on the Seine.
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