How Do You Live Aboard ? A Game We Can All Learn from . . .

[Tori]

Ok so I am curious how others live aboard and have their boats set up. What amenities do you have tv, cable, Internet etc.
In the post state where you live on the dock or on the hook? Fresh or salt, states or elsewhere, sail or power? How long living aboard? Size of boat, number of people and pets and what amenities you have to make life comfortable. I for one am curious and think we can all learn from this. If possible post pics but make them honest don't stage them. Oh and also do you just live aboard or do you take the boat out?

I will start:
Live in the marina, fresh water on a lake connected to St Johns in Florida. Living aboard 3 months, 2 adults, cat, 2 parrots and a lizard.
26 foot S2 sail boat we go out twice a week or more.
Amenities: direct tv, DVD player, 19 inch flatscreen in v berth, 2 laptops wifi, air conditioning, lots of fans, memory foam mattress in v berth. Have a refrigerator that works on shore power or battery, grill outside, double burner electric thing and microwave. Obviously some of this only works on shore power....For shade use a tarp. We can be off the dock and underway in less than 15 minutes.

Here are some pics who else wants to play? I figure the only other way to do this is to ask everybody if I can come aboard and this way I can reach more peeps

[DeepFrz]

You got a bird and an armadillo on board?

[Tori]

Actually two birds, a leopard gecko and a kitty but no armadillo

[wingNwing]

Cruising sometimes, at the dock other times. When at the dock, have DSL and landline, when cruising tether the cellphone to the laptop for internet. No TV, watch DVDs on the laptop occasionally. Coming up on 10 years living aboard, no plans to go back to land. A few photos are here: A Tour of Our Boat | Jaye Lunsford - Life Afloat | Blogs (www.HometownAnnapolis.com - The Capital) 2 adults, had a cat and a dog that we brought with us from our land-based life, both died of old age. Until we return to land, no pets, not even houseplants.

[captainKJ]

I'm in for playing the game. I live on a power boat full-time, 4 dogs, full-time wireless internet, satellite tv all the channels, our scenery changes weekly. 1 tender is 32 feet (twin 300) and the other is 25 feet (single 250), 2 jetskis, paddleboards, and more toys than I can list. Doesn't matter if we are at the dock or not. At least 9 tvs onboard (2x40 inch HD) more movies than you can ever use. A couple of guns for target practice. More space than you can possibly use for storage and such. We can be underway in less than 15 minutes. Our reigerator works on 110 along with the freezer, washer and dryer ( 2 each), dual watermakers for unlimited fresh water showers and wash-downs 120 gallons per hour.

I forgot to mention that the boat is 130 feet long and moves every other day. I live on a private yacht.

can not post real picture due to privacy concerns but this picture should give you an idea.

[bobofthenorth]

OK - I'll play. We just bought the boat last November so too soon to have a firm pattern established but so far:

- live in a marina 1/2 time and on the anchor the balance cruising the PNW
- no TV ever. 3G internet via tethered Blackberries (we each have our own with separate data plans - maybe that doesn't make sense but lots of things in life don't make sense.)
- fulltime cat who loves the boat
- we carry close to 400 gallons of fresh water with no watermaker but we pretty well ignore water conservation and plan to be at a dock every 10 days to 2 weeks.

Our life was "weird" before we bought the boat b/c we have lived in a converted highway bus for close to 4 years now. For a while that was our only official residence but that is just too complicated for many pinhead bureaucrats to understand, particularly the US border gestapo, so now we have a physical address again which is used to pick up mail and store antique furniture and books. The cat has only lived in a real house for about 12 months of his life so when we moved from the bus to the boat he thought his world had doubled in size. So did we.

Now we're back in the bus for the summer so that we can escape the hordes of tourists that descent on the PNW for the summer. When they all go home in the late fall we'll go back on the water for a while and then likely take the bus to Mexico for a couple of months but we'll be back in the PNW by late Feb. We had a herb garden on the boat for a couple of months but it had to go overboard when we forgot to offload it before leaving for Trawlerfest. It was pretty cool having fresh celantro, chives, rosemary, parsley, etc so we'll probably do that again in the spring but just remember to leave it on the dock when we plan to cross that damned imaginary line.

[virginia boy]

I'll play but I don't have many toys.

I have been living aboard my Westsail 28 for three months (girlfriend stays part time)
Anchored in Potomac River near Wash DC
No TV
No Radio
Pota-potty leaks into bilge
No running water. Water tank went foul and pumps broken (using water jugs)
Tethered iphone so I have internet
One fan
Using blue plastic tarp for boom tent
One very pretty, blue, "little cod marine stove" with drop in alcohol burners
Very large swimming hole in back yard

And this has been the most interesting, enjoyable, and peaceful three months I've spent in years! Could use some neighbors though, gets a little lonely.

[Hudson Force]

We're in the game. Our Morgan Ketch, Aythya, has few amenities,- a mizzen antennae for broadcast TV and usually free Wi-Fi when I can pick it up.
Mizzen Antennae
We are at a dock most often from Thanksgiving to the New Year also in the St. John's River and the rest of the time usually anchored in the Bahamas, Keys, Chesapeake or up to Maine. Presently we are at a dock in Baltimore running the AC during all the heat.

This has been or home for the last 27 years, but we are now in our fortieth year of living aboard.

We cruise with our dog, Zorro, but our children were with us from infants until they left to live in houses.
Now our grandson sometimes joins us.
We never had to downsize because we moved aboard from a time fresh out of college when all we owned would fit in our Volkswagen. Now we haven't owned a car for ten years.


We don't own anything ashore and we moved aboard on the day of the Watergate burglary, June 17th, 1972.

Keep an eye out for this transom,- we are your neighbors!

[Tori]

Bad ass Capt Force we shall watch for your transom as we adventure upriver! If you ever make it as far south as Lake Monroe look us up

[criss]

The only draw back I see from being in a marina on a live aboard is that you have to give them 30 notice before you leave, if you want to get your moneys worth out of them.
I have internet supplied by them, use my cell phone and I am hooked into their electrical power. I hope to go solar in the coming months and disconnect my cord from the dock. I did not elect to have Cable TV but it is also at the dock. As would be a faster internet connection if I elected.
The biggest problem is going to be California going after gray water or something like that. But a pump out is only like 20 bucks. So black water is not a problem. I can be out of the slip in 5 minutes but it takes about 1 1/2 hours to get out of the bay.
My boat is a little bigger so I have a microwave, a little heater for the winter and a toaster oven. I have more refrigerator space than I can use and lots of storage for beer beyond that.

[MarkJ]

OK this video shows what my boat is like.... Taken 2 years ago when Nic was still around.

This is a 'reality' video not a squeeky clean arranged photo!

‪Sea Life in Malaysia‬‏ - YouTube

Mark

[captainKJ]

MarkJ,
Nice video and sorry Nic is n o longer with you. But that being the case can you pst some of the private videos that were taken? This will give us an ides of what life is really like on a sailboat

[veprjack]

Hi,

I'm a newbie and currently boatless! BUT, I'm doing my homework and actively stepping on boats to get a "feel". So far, with a limited budget, I've been leaning towards C30 and Pearsons (303 specifically). There are other good choices, but these two (personal opinion and some good advice) offer me the chance to learn without being overwhelmed on a relatively small boat that is a) NOT too small inside and b) Has decent sailing characteristics and C) Are somewhat forgiving of newbieness!

Anyway, this is a GREAT forum in general and this thread is especially helpful for a live aboard wannabe. With luck, I'll be officially joining you guys before the snow flies just north of Boston (YES - I'll probably start off experiencing winter, which will give me time to curl up near the heater and STUDY tying knots, reading charts, playing with the nav electronics, doing cosmetic, etc. etc...).

So, if you don't lose your patience with a noob, I'll be hanging out here and asking LOTS of questions - especially when I'm snowed in and bored! By the way, parrots and geckos are just fine. Sonny on Miami Vice had an ALLIGATOR! lol...

[LauderBoy]

Originally Posted by Tori

Ok so I am curious how others live aboard and have their boats set up. What amenities do you have tv, cable, Internet etc.
In the post state where you live on the dock or on the hook? Fresh or salt, states or elsewhere, sail or power? How long living aboard? Size of boat, number of people and pets and what amenities you have to make life comfortable. I for one am curious and think we can all learn from this. If possible post pics but make them honest don't stage them. Oh and also do you just live aboard or do you take the boat out?

I've been living aboard for about a year now, at dock. I have a nice TV setup, 26 in LED LCD with some custom hardware so I can watch stuff from the internet on it. I have a pretty good long range internet setup as well.

Boat is a 1982 32ft Pearson 323. A real solid girl with a 1994 Yanmar 3GM30F in it, but she doesn't have much in the way of electronics yet. I have an alcohol stove and a fridge that runs off of 12v and hatch mount AC that works just enough to keep me cool while sleeping. I have a Nature's Head composting toilet I installed around 6 months ago and I also have a memory foam mattress(which I love) that I installed a couple months ago.

It's just me living aboard. I don't really take the boat out, I live in a pretty boring area to sail in. I do have a kayak aboard I take out every couple weeks and a fold up bicycle I also ride about once a week.

At the moment I'm working full time paying off debt and putting money in the boat. I'm probably a bit less than a year off from being debt free and having the boat setup for extended time away from the dock.

[capngeo]

On land now... But for 7 years, a 28' Bertram was home. I had just about everything as far as amenities. I lived with a Macaw named Tabasco, dockside at a tiki bar, i was single and did my best to keep the local island women happy... Ahh to be young again!