Living Aboard

Someone dropped a bomb on the morning net today. We were speeding right through our regularly scheduled broadcast when the voice of Marina La Cruz came on to inform us of a policy change. “The dinghy dock” (which had hitherto for been free) “will now be $5USD/day. We will also be issuing a day pass for the cruisers in the anchorage; $20 for use of the ‘services’ [VIP lounge, showers, etc.]” The net nearly imploded. For a few minutes all you could hear were boos and clicking as every boat that was listening echoed their dissent. $5/day is easily twice the most expensive dinghy dock fee in Mexico. We cleared out of Cabo (the former champion of excessive price) in just a few days, largely because of their API and dinghy dock fees. My mind was racing. Where could we go and still provision and get work done on our boat. Are the tacos in Punta de Mita anywhere near as good? ...

Q: What are some of the best things about traveling in close quarters with your family? A: I get this question phrased in many ways. The most generous and upbeat of which is reflected above in a question from my friend Penny. Other, less positive variations include “Don’t you ever just want to get away.” or “You are so brave” or “I bet you want to throw them overboard sometimes.” ...

Other than Tucker not going to work it seems like our day to day routines are really normal. Tucker wakes up early with the kids and makes me coffee before he gives me my wake up call. We make a breakfast or two and get dressed for the day. We go about our day doing boat projects or walk to a grocery store, or look for a place to do laundry. The kids play, read, do workbooks, make crafty projects, make messes, play games and video games, go for walks, find parks, climb trees, go to the beach, and visit with friends. All of our meals are at home or packed up as picnics. The pace is really perfect. Ruby has time to sew with my help; to concentrate on her cursive handwriting; or to sit in between Olive and I and give us very specific and serious lessons so that we can become competent Angry Birds players. Olive looks for jobs and fixing projects whenever he can. Today he very seriously threaded buttons onto embroidery thread (really a distraction so I could work with Ruby on her project) and made several strands as gifts for all of us. ...

More than a year ago, when we had bought the boat but hadn’t moved aboard yet I found this print while reading Kind Over Matter. It says, “it is in all of us to defy expectations to go into the world and to be brave; and to want, to need, to hunger for adventures; to embrace change and chance and risk so that we may breathe and know what it is to be free.” I knew with certainty that we were on the right life path—about to live on our boat while we got ready to travel the world—but I took her message as a huge encouragement. Her prints and her original works are listed on her etsy store and I’ve gone back many times to look and wished that I had a wall for a print. Last week I decided to order an 8x10 print even if I was only going to tape it up on the hanging locker door. ...

For the last week or so I’ve been in a terminal velocity free fall of stress. Yes it’s cruising related but probably not what you would think. The stress derives from the notion that I don’t want to own anything (after we drop the dock lines) that we can’t fit in the ManVan or on our boat. I don’t want a storage unit, or a bunch of stuff squirreled away in friends/family’s houses and I don’t want to save anything that I don’t love and expect to dream about regularly while we’re cruising. In fact I want the few possessions that we hold on to to be so significant that I actually consider swallowing the hook in order to be able to use them again. I don’t want to hold on to any sh…tuff. ...

Last week we had an unpleasant situation with a guy moving in next door to us. He claimed that he was going to be our new liveaboard neighbor. We would have been distressed if that had been the extent of it, but by the end of the day he had become quite unstable and we were forced to move as far away as possible. (If you are FB friends with me you can read the whole freaky story here.) ...

It’s 2:30 PST and the majority of the tsunami seems to have come and gone. Reports from around the Bay seem to be marginally more severe than what we experienced but still nothing serious. We observed 2’ walls of water moving at several knots parallel to the Golden Gate Bridge. Just before the tsunami surge hit our breakwater the standing water receded and left the muddy bottom bare. Then the wave(s) hit and created a ton of turbulence, kicking up mud and causing an impressive flotilla of water foul to stream by in parade. ...

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how the kids’ childhoods will differ from their contemporaries as a result of this wild adventure we’re about to embark upon. Ruby understands that there are many things we will be giving up to go sailing around the world but I don’t think she’s got the context to understand it fully yet. The following are some of the experiences that Ruby and Olive might never share with their peers. ...

Conserving water has been one of our biggest worries lately. With only 110 gallons of water tankage (plus whatever we can fit in cans on deck), we have a good reason to be concerned. The average Pacific crossing for a boat of our size is ~21 days. Conservative water consumption for 4 people (adults) is 2 gallons per day per person (or 8 gal/day total). We have been using about 17.5 gallons/day since we moved aboard. At that rate we would have just a little more than 6 days worth of water (sans Jerry Cans). ...

Say hello to a stranger on the street. If they look interesting and willing to chat walk with them up the block. Tucker met Andrea in Vermont many years ago this way and we had such a great time with her. Make friends with a friend of a friend. You see someone at a friend’s party and then the next one and so on. At some point, have dinner with the friend of the friend and see what happens. ...

I wasn’t at home when we were tied into slip A58 in Monterey Harbor. I was homesick. Surprising yes, since I was on my own boat, tied up with my usual dock lines, cooking in my own galley, and sleeping in my own bed. I spent my time in Monterey constantly checking the three forecast areas on NOAA to find our perfect weather window to head north. Again, I was surprised at myself. The trip north is usually hard, wet, and cold. Our boat is in great shape and we could actually (foolishly) cash in Tucker’s retirement accounts and head south for at least a year. I always want to go south, or anywhere warmer than wherever I am. But I wanted to go north, to go home. ...

There are dozens of reasons to love living on a boat. Some adore the gentle rocking as they fall to sleep; some like the gorgeous view from their cockpit and decks; some the ability to take their home on vacation with them; and others cherish the simplicity of living small. I’m sure the list goes on. For me though the thing I love most is the dockside social scene. At first I thought I had just lucked into the world’s best marina but now that we have spent a week in Santa Cruz harbor, I’m starting to believe that there is a universal chattiness amongst sailors. ...