Well, mostly.
My house / home (?) is in Austin, Texas, where I've happily lived for the past 15 years.
Years ago, I had a friend an former manager that had a 28' sailboat on Lake Texoma. When I visited his marina one Saturday, he introduced me to a number of his dock neighbors. Several of them would drive out to their boat on Friday after work, and stay until Sunday. At the time, already loving boats, I thought that would be an amazing lifestyle.
I had read of boats cruising across oceans - but that seemed a bit more than I wanted to try. I then started reading about "The Great Loop" - people that cruised from New Orleans down to Floriday, up the east coast, through the Great Lakes, down to the Mississippi, and back to New Orleans. That seemed far safer, and yet still a great adventure. I dreamed of cruising on a boat, "gunk-holing" in search of deserted islands and sandy beaches to explore.
And that was the dream: Exploring. Exploring new towns, beaches, places that my boat would take me - without taking me toooo far from civilization.
The first steps of that dream involved a progression through a series of boats that would eventually allow me to spend the night, and then spend a weekend comfortably on the boat. On Lake Travis, near Austin, Texas, I achieved the initial dream of being able to go to the boat Friday at lunch, work from the boat (logged into the internet) the rest of Friday afternoon, then close the laptop and enjoy life on the boat until Sunday evening. The next step was to purchase a boat that I could live on longer and go further distances to explore greater adventures.
In October of 2021, with most people tiring of the Covid pandemic, I purchased a 1983 Ocean Alexander 40 Trawler in Kemah, Texas. The marina in Kemah is right at 3 hours drive from my house in South Austin. Lately, I've been spending about 75% of my time living on the boat - staying a little less than 2 weeks, and then driving back to Austin to stay for a day or two to check on the house, have dinner with my daughter, do laundry, and go to doctor's appointments before returning to the boat for the next two weeks. Spending about 75% of my time on the boat has been a reality since late December 2021 or very early January 2022. The reality is that winter is not the best time to spend on the boat. Between cold weather and short days, if I can survive winter, then the rest of the year will hopefully be much more rewarding. Unfortunately, the summer of 2023 was the opposite - it was just soooo dang hot that no one was all that inspired to leave the dock, which meant leaving air conditioning behind.
Why would I give up a comfortable home to live on a boat?
The simple answer is that "live aboards" are a slightly different breed of people. Many would argue that we usually have more than one loose screw.
Living on a boat has it's advantages. There is nothing like waking up on the water. One might imagine being rocked gently to sleep at night - but that's often not quite true. I'm about half way back into a well protected marina. So unless the wind is very high, the boat really doesn't rock that much. I start feeling the boat rock when the wind is around 20mph. Boat wakes can definitely be a problem for marinas that are not well protected.
Those that live on a boat experience life at a slightly different pace. There are challenges, to be sure, and frustrations with things that go wrong with the boat, and ALWAYS things to do, maintenance to manage. But boat people generally lead a more relaxed life. It's a calmer vibe than living in the middle of the city.
Perhaps many live aboards do it for the "sense of adventure". The draw of the sea can still be felt. We have friends that take off on adventures to travel down the coast or visit far away destinations. Or at least we have the hope of doing so. For now we may occasionally slip off the dock lines and go cruise for a few hours, perhaps the infrequent over night trip. But we *could* go further, and some day we just might...
We are the captains of our own ships. And though the ship may be small, being the captain of any ship still brings that heady sense of being in command of one's own destiny. There is the dream that we can go where we wish, and that once there, we can stay until we decide to journey somewhere else. Being captain of the vessel carries ultimate responsibility for anything that might go wrong. But the captain is in command - a feeling different from merely living in a home on land. (Cue romantically adventurous music...)
And there is something to be said about the sunsets. There is no better way to spend an evening than by relaxing with friends on the deck of the boat at sunset. Good friends, good food, and good conversation. And best of all, when it's all done, you're ALREADY at home. You simply go down below and go to bed, only to wake up on the water for another day.
Live aboards are different. We deal with different problems, and appreciate the simple things that a life on the water has to offer. If you sit with a group of live aboards, they will often be talking about their boats. Most "normal" people don't sit around and talk about having to work on their toilet(s). Live aboards FREQUENTLY tell stories of problems with their "head(s)" (toilet), holding tank(s), and water pumps. Other common topics include debates about solar panels, dingies, and engines. Live aboards share stories and a sense of community. In many regards, living on a boat is like "tiny home" living in a really small town - though both the homes and the town is much smaller.
Before you think about forwarding your mail to the marina address:
Yes, this is one possible way to get your mail locally. Many of the marinas set up a set of pockets or holders, where mail can be delivered. Our marina has a "cage" where Amazon and other packages get delivered. Getting packages at the marina has worked great for me.
Mail - NO! The marina is seen as a "business", and not as a residence. This causes a lot of headaches when trying to do things like trying to renew your driver's license.
Forwarding from: The other BIG problem is that once you have your mail sent to a marina, you can't put a forwarding request in at the post office to have your personal mail forwarded to a different address.
Forwarding mail from my Austin address also proved problematic. I acquired a mailbox at The UPS Store. The mailbox was fine. But the USPS service in Austin was terribly unreliable about forwarding mail. Hopefully your local post office is MUCH better than my experience was.
I ended up getting a mailbox for the house that had a "fall through" into the (locked) large base of the mailbox. Since all my bills are paid electronically, getting my mail from the house every two weeks or so was no problem. All delivered mail is safely kept in the locked bottom section of the mailbox until I get home - and this has been working very nicely for almost a year now.
6/5/2022
It's been a while since I've written. More projects under my belt. With time, each project teaches me more about how the systems work, and how to service / repair them. One does not need TV on a boat - there is ALWAYS *SOMETHING* to do!!!
The past several months have also been heavily involved with moving my parents to an assisted living center, and all that has been involved with getting them stable, and taking care of their medical needs. Between work, caring for elderly parents, and helping my girlfriend with urgent projects on her boat too, there has been very little time for working on projects on my boat, and almost no time at all for taking the boat out.
June 4th, 2022 started the first month of my 3rd sabbatical. Due to scheduling reasons, I've split this 2 month sabbatical into two single month sabbaticals - the first being the month of June 2022, and the second month possibly June of 2023. The *plan* was to spend the first week cruising locally, with overnight trips to Offat's Bayou at Galveston, or maybe on Redfish Island. The week of gaining more boat experience would be followed by 3 weeks of exploring Florida and the Florida Keys by car, to see if it might be practical to take the boat there next year or retirement.
While the repairs / projects / and delays can be frustrating - I have to keep reminding myself: When moving aboard and preparing to "take off and cruise", it's a really good idea to PLAN to spend the first YEAR moving aboard, fixing things, getting the boat in sound order, and taking short coastal trips to become intimately familiar with the boat, boat systems, and boat handling. So while it's easy to get frustrated that I don't feel like "I'm living the boat life" yet (all I do is fix things, and work) - I have to keep in mind that this is still just the first year. HOPEFULLY things will stabilize and become more regular maintenance and less fixing things that were over-due or just not right when I bought the boat.
7/18/2022
COMMUNITY:
There's a lot to be said for the "community" aspect of the marina.
In June, we took off a couple of weeks to drive from Texas to Key West, stopping along the way at many of the waterfront towns. The objective was to see what the marinas were like, and whether it seemed reasonable and affordable to cruise from Texas to Key West, and possibly up the Atlantic coast of Florida, finding reasonable fuel and anchorages along the way.
The outcome of this specific trip was not encouraging. While fuel was at least available, the prices were very high ($5.50/gal for diesel, $7.50/gal for gasoline in June of 2022). Slip prices were easily twice what we were used to paying in Texas (easily $1500/month for a 45' slip). Transient slips were very expensive ($200/night in some places, making local rates of $120/night seem cheap) and appeared to be in very short supply. If we made the trip, we would have to plan on anchoring out a LOT - both due to lack of transient slips, but also for budget reasons.
As we looked at the marinas along the coast between New Orleans and Key West, we noticed another difference between the typical marina and our home port of Waterford Marina in Kemah, Texas: the size and facilities. Most of the marinas we encountered seemed to be in the modest 30-40 boat capacity. While most would easily handle a 40' trawler, the marinas clearly were not of the scale that we were used to - which mean that they clearly did not have the financial ability to provide the luxuries of pools, hot tubs, and in many cases no community areas and possibly no laundry facilities. Of course, the sense of the marina community has everything to do with the people, and nothing to do with whether there is a hot tub or pool. But a hot tub to soak in after a long day is nice. Laundry facilities are a much more practical necessity when cruising and making transient stops. If a lot of the cruising time is spend at anchor, then there is a need for expensive slip time to allow for filling the water tank(s), emptying the holding tank(s), doing laundry, stocking provisions, and maybe even taking care of a maintenance chore or two.
If you read much about cruising the loop - you read over and over about the people you meet. On our vacation trip, the people we met were friendly - but we didn't have the luxury of spending enough time at any of the marinas to see what the "community" aspect was like.
Our marina has a fairly large number of people that live aboard, or are at least go out to their boats on a very frequent basis. (Like most marinas, we also have a large number - perhaps as high as 50% - of boats that just sit, are never used, are never visited.) The live aboards and active marina members have a strong sense of community. I know most of the people on my dock. I've swapped phone numbers with many of my neighbors. If something happens on the dock, we know we have friends that we can count on. It's a wonderful feeling of comfort to know that we're all looking out for each other. I've been in the marina about 2 years now, and I know far more of my neighbors here, and know them considerably better - than the neighbors in my "home neighborhood" where I've owned my house for over 15 years.
TRUST and COMMUNICATION:
I used to think I was pretty good at communication. Over the years, I've had a wife, girlfriends, and guests out on various boats that I've owned. Most of my guests weren't really "boat people". They had limited or no experience handling boats. It has been different dating Ann-Marie, and spending time on boats (hers as well as mine) with her. She is a strong, independent woman. And she has at least as much experience as I do in most aspects of boat handling (she knows more about sailing and navigation, I know more about wiring and engine mechanics, though I still consider myself a very reluctant diesel mechanic!).
I have been learning that apparently I'm not so good, after all, at providing a detailed plan of how we might handle an upcoming boat handling situation. I've also learned that I'm not very good at actually listening to my partner, trusting that she knows what she's doing, and following her directions. I mean, intellectually I *know* that she knows what she's doing. But trusting in the moment and not second guessing is a hard thing to do when you have many years of not having someone around that is profoundly capable of handling a boat.
If you find a couple that is successful in cruising, boat handling, boat management, and boat upkeep - you will have found a couple that has a very strong relationship of trust and clear communication. A skill I need to continue to work on is coming up with a plan, communicating it clearly to my crew, and trusting them.