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[ocelot]

Here's some stuff I've noted about living on a boat. Our boat, specifically. Larger boats, or even boats our size that are a bit more complete and customized, aren't necessarily going to be quite as bad. Not that it's bad, really. There's just some areas that could use some improvement.

Cloth diapering just ain't happening anymore. Laundry is expensive and a big pain, so we're not wanting to do a load of diapers every day or two, and storage of both clean and dirty diapers is a problem. We weren't doing EC at all for a while, but we've started doing diaper free time for a while each day. A boat should a pretty ideal place for EC - the floor is designed to be hosed down, and it's impossible for the baby to get out of sight or easy reach of the potty. In reality, though... he spends a lot of time climbing on places that shouldn't be peed on, we have no easy way of dealing with pees we catch in the potty (well, bucket), and we've never been all that good at the signaling part. We're working on it, though. Hopefully the laundry facilities will be more useable wherever we end up and we can go back to cloth at least part time.

Lack of plumbing is a problem. This is partially a problem with our boat - the water storage system exists, but we haven't got it cleaned out and hooked up, the sink doesn't drain, and the toilet lacks a storage tank. This is annoying, as we have to leave the boat to do anything involving water, including washing dishes, and going up to the communal bathrooms is a real pain if another adult isn't around to watch Leif or in the middle of the night. The bathroom portion is likely to be a problem on any size boat, though. From what I understand, you don't want use the onboard bathroom on a regular basis, as they tend to stink and the storage tank has to be emptied when it gets full.

I have no idea how we're going to get Leif potty trained if we have to go outside to the bathroom all the time.

We have no shower, which is a bit of a problem if we're going to live away from a marina (which is our eventual goal). The area where the toilet and vanity are is between the main cabin and v-berth, and can kind of be closed off from the rest of the boat. We can possibly put some sort of shower in there, though we're afraid that will get things damp. It would also mean we couldn't use the vanity as storage space, which would be too bad, as it's a nice big accessible space. If we don't do the shower thing, we'll likely turn it into a closet since having a sink there is basically useless.

If we don't do the shower there, we may rig up a screen outside in the cockpit, but that only works when the weather is warm enough for an outdoor shower.

There's also the option of just joining a nearby gym or something, which could end up being the best solution for everyday use if we're somewhere without a bathroom with showers. Even if we do put a shower on the boat, the water system isn't up to providing nice long hot showers. More likely it would be one of those 5-10 gallon camp solar showers or similar.

In some ways, the boat is easier to keep clean than a house/apartment. I can sweep the entire floor in the same time it used to take me to sweep just the kitchen. However, the floor tends to get rather dirtier than the kitchen floor, as we do all our living on it, not just kitchen stuff - it really *needs* to be swept every day, and mopped once a week or so. We don't have as much stuff, so picking up only takes a few minutes, but there isn't much storage space, so stuff tends to get cluttered, even though there isn't all that much of it.

Leif can reach our bookshelf, which is rather dangerous for our books. In fact, he can reach basically all of our shelves with enough effort. We've found him on top of the shelves at the head of the bed, in the kitchen sink, and any number of other ridiculous places. Nothing is safe. I'm not convinced the situation would be much better on land, though. He's a little monkey.

He doesn't seem to mind living on a boat. He doesn't have many toys, but he isn't really into toys, anyways. Or rather, anything he runs across is a toy, regardless of whether it's really supposed to be or not. I'm not sure what will happen as he gets older, but Laura Ingalls Wilder got by quite well with a corncob doll, a tin cup, and a Bible, and he's not going to be quite that bad off, so I suppose he'll be fine.

Storage space is tough. There's actually a fair amount of it, but much of it is small, oddly shaped, damp, difficult to access, or some combination thereof. We'll gain some space once we get stuff organized better, but it's never going to be great. At the moment, the quarter berth (a tunnel about as wide as a twin bed, but longer) is the generic catchall, but we intend for that to be Leif's room when he's ready for his own bed, so we need to find a better answer.

The bed isn't the most wonderful thing in the world. It's a v-berth - located at the front of the boat, it's about the size of a queen sized bed at the head, tapering down to about a foot across at the foot. I suspect that with two people it would be just fine, but with three, it's a bit cramped, even though one is still pretty small.

Food storage is awkward. We have a large ice box (probably about the same amount of size as an average refrigerator) built-in, but it doesn't seem to be very well insulated, so ice melts too fast for it to be really useful. We currently use it for food that doesn't need to be kept cold, and use a regular portable cooler for cold stuff. This requires buying ice on a regular basis, which is kind of annoying, and somewhat offsets the financial benefit of not running a fridge. We do have a little electronic cooler as well, but it's very small (it'll hold about a six-pack of soda) and we don't really have a good place to put it, so we don't use it yet. It's possible we'll end up using it instead of the cooler - given that so much of the space in the cooler is used for ice, we don't keep all that much stuff in there anyways - and reduce the amount of refrigerated food we get.

We have a propane stove/oven that isn't currently hooked up to anything, which is probably a good thing, since it absolutely fascinates Leif. We had to tie it closed or he'd be banging and trying to climb up on the open door all day. We'll probably replace it with diesel/kerosene soon - it's safer, and it would cost nearly as much to retrofit the stove to work with new propane tanks as it would to buy a new stove. More, if we can find one used. We currently cook with a little propane grill, a crock pot, and a coffee maker. Really, it works pretty well, except that the grill is only useful during good weather. I'm not unhappy with the cooking situation, though I suppose we'll want the flexibility of a stove and oven in the long run.

It's a small living space, so we tend to get in eachother's way a lot, but it isn't unbearable at all. Leif's favorite place to stand is on the entryway steps, which makes it a little difficult to get in and out. When the table is out, it takes up a lot of room, but Leif enjoys playing under it and on top of it. When it's folded all the way out, it blocks access to the v-berth, so we don't do that much. Luckily, folded in half, it's about the perfect size for working on the computer or to use as a sewing table.

On the good side, the cramped quarters tend to mean we get outside more. Leif gets a walk in the park at least twice a day. He doesn't seem to mind living on a boat.

We don't have reliable internet access. We use wireless at coffee shops, and occasionally koyote's cell phone, but that tends to be flaky and we're not sure how kosher it is. A nearby town, Culver City, put free wireless all over their downtown, which is neat. I'm not sure what we'll do about this in the long run. I think it's healthier not being online as much, but access is so infrequent these days that I have a hard time keeping caught up with what little I'm still involved in. It should only take me 30 minutes or so a day to keep caught up, but when I miss a few days, that piles up fast. We also really need access on a regular basis for our ebay stuff, especially once silkensteel and family finish their move and we can start picking up the pace a little again. So yeah, I'm not sure what we'll do about that in the long run. I guess it depends on what the options are wherever we end up.

We're having some trouble finding a marina. This isn't something we necessarily could have anticipated - a lot of rules have changed within the past year or so. The Port of San Diego doesn't allow liveaboard on boats under 35', and doesn't allow more than two people for boat, including very small people, and many other marinas (specifically those in the Almar chain) are following suit. These are basically arbitrary rules. There's a 34' catamaran in our marina that has a ton of living space, and I've seen 36' boats that don't have significantly more living space than ours. We're pretty sure it's intended as an entry barrier - boats above about 33' tend to be a lot more expensive to buy than shorter boats, and slip fees are generally based on boat length. Furthermore, liveaboard slips tend to be limited by the harbormasters to no more than 10% or so of the available slips. Several marinas we've talked to would like to offer more, but it just isn't an option. So waiting lists for liveaboard slips tend to be long.

We're also running into the same old credit problem. We don't like using credit cards, so we have no credit history. You'd think that several years worth of no bad credit reports while living on your own would be sufficient evidence of willingness to pay bills, but no. And marinas have the freedom to be a bit pickier about who they accept than apartment complexes - they often flat out reject bad or no credit, while apartments tend to just require a bigger deposit. We also have a bit of a catch-22 with the job situation which doesn't help matters. We can't really look for decent jobs until we know where we're going to be staying, but we can't know where we are going to be staying until we can find a spot.

Luckily, the dockmaster here seems to be a bit of a pushover. We were originally supposed to be out by the end of August "firm", but we've managed to get that extended through October.

It isn't the end of the world if we don't find something before we have to leave. There are guest docks and cheap or free moorings and anchorages. The main drawbacks of these is that they don't tend to come with showers, and I really really like my showers.

For a short time, we also have the option of going up to Oregon. It's tempting - we know a marina up there that has tons of open space and only charges $70.00 a month, including utilities. California north of the Bay Area (including our one-time dream town of Arcata) and the rest of the Oregon coast are likely to be similar. In Southern California slip fees for a boat our size are usually at least $275, often without utilities included, and with $100-$150 per person added on for liveaboard. Still cheaper than renting even a 1-bedroom apartment around here, but not dirt cheap, either. The three big drawbacks are that we're nearing the end of the window for boating up the coast, we don't quite have the confidence for the trip, and, perhaps most importantly, it's a very economically depressed area, and there's no assurance that we could get even a crap job. It's also far from my family, except for my dear cousin oatmeal.

Staying here in Marina Del Rey (or elsewhere in LA) isn't ideal, but wouldn't be the end of the world, either. There's a lot to do around here, and a lot of jobs. We loved Ventura, a town on the coast just far enough north of LA to not be considered a suburb. It's like Davis transplanted to the Southern California coast, and is thrift store and birthing center heaven. 10 thrift stores (many of them with nice stuff) and 2 birthing centers within 10 blocks! However, one marina is evil Almar, the second we really liked, but they're the credit nazis (and have no openings right now, anyways), and the third is very small and all filled up. The harbor is also somewhat isolated from the rest of Ventura, though not too bad with bikes. San Diego marinas are too restrictive. We're on a waiting list for a mooring (which wouldn't be too bad in San Diego, especially at the moorings right off of Coronado, as we could use my dad's shower), but it's entirely possible we'll be on it for a year before there's an opening.

Something will happen. Our lives tend to work that way - when things are beginning to seem hopeless, an opportunity comes up. And if they don't, we'll live less than luxurious lives, lacking in the shower department, until the weather and currents are good for us to get up to Oregon, I suppose. When I start to panic, I have to remind myself that this is the one of the big benefits of a boat - we have less ties to any particular location. Moving is basically cost-free. It can just be a little tough determining where we can move to.

Congratulations if you made it this far.

I have a bunch of pictures, stretching back to May, that I'm in the process of sorting. Perhaps someday I'll post them.

Comments

[therealocelot.livejournal.com]

Don't worry, we don't expect you to do long weekday trips (and probably not that many weekend trips, either). Remember, we don't have a houseful of stuff that needs to be moved in a short time anymore.

And as for the storage - we're talking egg crate sized boxes and smaller, not a storage shed :) We'll manage. Thanks though :)