Media excerpts II
In the past, living on a boat at the water's edge was sometimes the only affordable housing you could get. There was not much desire to travel so mobility was not an important factor. Barges, derelicts would do. If you needed to move, you found a friend with a (real, working) boat and got a tow. This was where the bottom rungs of society lived, hence a lot of historical animosity by terrestrial dwellers against live-aboards. I should point out that living aboard a working vessel, not a floating house (even then), is not always the most affordable housing available. Our costs our comparable to living in one bedroom apartment in a nice neighborhood. But there are other benefits...
There is the naturalist factor. We can walk to a wildlife preserve with a bottle of wine and see all sorts of wild things. We have all manner of wading and fishing birds. They are a joy to watch. We watch more sunsets and sunrises. There's the unobstructed waterfront view. There is the mobility factor. At Redwood Marina tneighbors were great, the facilities sucked. I disliked getting stuck in the mud (sorry guys) or planning our trips around an annoying tide window. So we changed neighborhoods. All it took was getting a new slip (not such a small feat, but we persevered), notifying the marina and our friends. One day, we just left.
There is the travel factor. We want to go cruising. Explore the world. We live aboard to get the boat ready without the distractions of also maintaining another residence. It is also (supposedly) an incentive to sail the boat more. It is sometimes difficult to sail your house. It is also sometimes difficult to live in a work in progress, you have no space to spread out. But this is a skill you will have to learn anyway.
There is the simple living factor. Live with less things. I believe that the blind accumulation of things is bad. It drags you down. You need bigger and bigger houses just to hold all of that junk. And how often do you use it? I didn't have very much when I moved aboard. I put the furniture in storage (for a year, just in case I really didn't like living aboard) and finally gave it all away to the Salvation Army. The sum total of my possession are in a 5x5x10 storage unit, the boat, the dock-box and the car. We'll sell/donate the car when "go." The storage unit will be emptied.
Then, finally, there is the boat factor. And I can't do much better than quoting Kenneth Grahame:
". . .there is nothing -- absolutely nothing -- half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats . . . or with boats . . . In or out of 'em, it doesn't matter. Nothing seems really to matter, that's the charm of it. Whether you get away, or whether you don't; whether you arrive at your destination or whether you reach somewhere else, or whether you never get anywhere at all, you're always busy, and you never do anything in particular; and when you've done it there's always something else to do, and you can do it if you like, but you'd much rather not."
There is the naturalist factor. We can walk to a wildlife preserve with a bottle of wine and see all sorts of wild things. We have all manner of wading and fishing birds. They are a joy to watch. We watch more sunsets and sunrises. There's the unobstructed waterfront view. There is the mobility factor. At Redwood Marina tneighbors were great, the facilities sucked. I disliked getting stuck in the mud (sorry guys) or planning our trips around an annoying tide window. So we changed neighborhoods. All it took was getting a new slip (not such a small feat, but we persevered), notifying the marina and our friends. One day, we just left.
There is the travel factor. We want to go cruising. Explore the world. We live aboard to get the boat ready without the distractions of also maintaining another residence. It is also (supposedly) an incentive to sail the boat more. It is sometimes difficult to sail your house. It is also sometimes difficult to live in a work in progress, you have no space to spread out. But this is a skill you will have to learn anyway.
There is the simple living factor. Live with less things. I believe that the blind accumulation of things is bad. It drags you down. You need bigger and bigger houses just to hold all of that junk. And how often do you use it? I didn't have very much when I moved aboard. I put the furniture in storage (for a year, just in case I really didn't like living aboard) and finally gave it all away to the Salvation Army. The sum total of my possession are in a 5x5x10 storage unit, the boat, the dock-box and the car. We'll sell/donate the car when "go." The storage unit will be emptied.
Then, finally, there is the boat factor. And I can't do much better than quoting Kenneth Grahame:
". . .there is nothing -- absolutely nothing -- half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats . . . or with boats . . . In or out of 'em, it doesn't matter. Nothing seems really to matter, that's the charm of it. Whether you get away, or whether you don't; whether you arrive at your destination or whether you reach somewhere else, or whether you never get anywhere at all, you're always busy, and you never do anything in particular; and when you've done it there's always something else to do, and you can do it if you like, but you'd much rather not."
posted by Leon at 3:42 PM
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