Category: Living Aboard in General

One of the great aspects of being so involved in the liveaboard community is that I have the opportunity to be an advocate for people to get out there and live their dreams. Today I wanted to take a few moments to honor a person that I never really knew – apart from an email forum group that I participate in astrophotography. I wanted to pass along a note from a person who goes by the name “Arizona Dollar Bill” Logan submitting his last photograph to the group.

In Bill’s own words, here are a few of his parting words on what it takes to live your dream:

“It took almost 30 years to plan my retirement. I wanted a place where I could trout fish during the day and stargaze at night. Lots of cold water streams and lakes and a dark sky location, domed or roll-off-roof observatory and a nice [telescope] were my goals. During the last ten years of employment, I was scrimping and saving as well as stashing 20% into my 401K. Since I had total control over which funds to invest my 401K, I did really good with my selected mutual funds during the 90s stock market boom. I never took a sick day in the last 13 years which netted me close to 12Gs payout at retirement.

Even with two kids, both going to college, I was able to find a 1/2 acre lot abutted up against the National Forest giving me a clear unobstructed light pollution free view of the southern sky. Two years before retirement, in an effort to conserve my savings, I elected to purchase a manufactured home instead of a site-built home. I bought an economy gas-saving Honda Civic cash for going to church and shopping.

Your day will come my friend.

For you and many others who dream of a quiet place on top of a mountain, planning makes all the difference.

Caela perlucida,
Arizona “Dollar” Bill Logan
Director and Chief Astronomer
Robert Burnham Jr. Memorial Observatory
Life goal: To be the person my dog thinks I am.

I find great meaning in this.

There was a post on one of the recent forums from a prospective live-aboard who is interested in purchasing a boat that he believes is a perfect bargain home – and he might be right. But he might be wrong, and if he is, based on his description of the boat, his life will become a living hell.

The thing about boats is that they are hard enough already. Sanding and refinishing a deck or interior is a tremendously arduous job, and a job that requires near-perfection, diligence and attention to detail. Depending on the boat, the job could take weeks or months. This is so hard that many liveaboards end up not doing the work at all, and most end up doing less-than-adequate work.

Now imagine if you are living aboard and trying to refinish your brightwork. There is no place to move your possessions, and the fumes are smelly and toxic. Fiberglass repair is even worse – a very dirty business, and the fumes from fiberglass dust, as well as epoxies and other materials are also quite odoriferous and highly toxic (cancer causing). At a minimum, you will lose the comfort of your home, if not your entire home. And you could easily lose your health. I suffered liver damage while still in my 20s (equivalent to a person who was a heavy drinker for 20+ years) from prolonged exposure to toxic fumes from epoxy – but my liver recovered because of my age. Fumes of any kind can kill you.

How do our liveaboard brothers and sisters handle these issues? Simple. They (we) often don’t do the work. No matter the best of our intentions, liveaboards’ boats tend to flounder or receive temporary or minimal fixes. These problems, of course, are magnified for liveaboards that purchase fixer-uppers, particularly when there is some short-term intention to move aboard. Many fixer-uppers never get fixed up or moved on. It is also worth mention that boat repairs are almost always far more expensive than can ever be anticipated by someone that does not repair boats regularly. And it is not all that uncommon for fixes to reveal new and bigger problems or raise possibilities for other previously-unanticipated improvements. In general, unless you are a craftsperson by nature, consider a boat that is already good-to-go, or as nearly ready as possible. Consider boats that are all fiberglass with very little wood trim (this is one reason why boats by Hunter, Catalina and Benetau are so popular).

If you read my book, you’ll hear horror stories about my surveyor. Nonetheless, don’t ever consider buying a boat, particularly a fixer, without a surveyor. Even if you know boats or know that a boat will need a ton of work, the surveyor’s eyes act as a third-person objective voice. But in all likelihood, they’ll find things that you never thought could possibly be broken.

So please be careful here. To the gentleman on the forum, I hope he understands what he is getting into. But like all boaters, we follow our hearts – and unfortunately, our heart doesn’t end up paying the bills or doing the work.

This is a little bit of a rant.  Today, we had the photo shoot for the LA Times article, and person in the next boat, someone who has been denied a liveaboard slip in the LA area, started complaining about how horrible liveaboards are treated and the lengths marinas go to in order to prevent unauthorized liveaboards. 

This boater, an otherwise nice and knowledgeable sailor, is one example of the cause of the problem why liveaboards are having problems in certain marinas and geographical areas.  He sneaks aboard and gets in trouble for it.  And then makes the marinas all wish that they had nothing to do with people like him. 

In truth, liveaboards, as a community, have three problems.  One problem is that they (we) often want less to do with society, and as a result we have no community presence.  The second problem is that many liveaboards treat their boats like garages, with their possessions overflowing onto the deck and dock, and making the surrounding area unsightly and possibly dangerous.  In that vein, many liveaboards also do not (or cannot) perform proper routine maintenance because it is impossible to get their possessions out of the way.  The third problem is that liveaboards are scapegoats for governmental authorities and politicians use the ability to go after our scattered group as proof that they are protecting society (most often in connection with environmental issues). 

How do we fix these issues?  Well for one thing we need to form some sort of community presence.  It doesn’t need everyone, just enough of us to make a difference.  We need to be presentable, keeping our decks and docks clean, at least as clean as the rest of the marina.  These are perception issues that can be changed, if we are diligent. 

Nonetheless, the boater who complained to the LA Times hurt us all today.  He put at risk our ability to share the fact that we are normal, regular people with a mass audience, and he did it because no marina wants him, as an individual, in their community.  I hope that the LA Times can see through this nonsense.  But we were all possibly hurt today… and by one of our own.  That’s my rant. 

There is a bit of a rebirth going on when it comes to living aboard. Yesterday I gave an interview to the LA Times Deputy Real Estate Editor and we are going to shoot some pics tomorrow for an upcoming edition of the paper. How about that? The LA Times putting living aboard back into the real estate section where it belongs.

I am working on a collection of projects to try to get a handle on the number of live aboards and live aboard marinas, as well as an idea of the trends. But I have a sense. Living aboard is still under fire from some local governments and agencies trying to demonstrate a plan to fight vagrancy and pollution, and to clean up their waterfronts. 

The popularity of the lifestyle, however, as well as how permissive the marinas, are cyclical.  And it really does come down to money.  If a marina has a waiting list years long for its slips, it will choose the nicest boats rather than the nicest boaters.  And we’re all pretty nice, but we don’t always have those million dollar boats.  But when the number of boaters decrease, and the demand decreases, all of a sudden those self-imposed restrictions will vanish.

In many areas, living aboard is very much coming back in vogue. How do I know this? Well for one thing, the book is continuing to do well. Interest is out there. With real estate prices down and real estate less secure there is less of a desire to buy land at all cost (literally and figuratively). And local governments seem to be more understanding of the lifestyle. We are going to be putting together a list of these rules and issues over the coming months. In the meantime, I will do my best to provide you with updated news on the liveaboard community and issues that effect the every day liveaboard.

In the meantime, be sure to check out Chris Caswell’s article on liveaboards that seem to have things figured out.

Gentle breezes,

Mark

Learning to Live Aboard
Full-time living on board a boat can be mastered. by Chris Caswell
boats.com – Feature: Learning to Live Aboard

This is the official beginning of my second liveaboard blog. The first was lost when I changed web hosts. That should never happen again now that I am hosting this directly on WordPress. It doesn’t look as nice or have the same functionality, but it should do its part – that being to get you the news you need on this really amazing lifestyle.

Until then, gentle seas, – Mark