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23-10-2014, 07:31
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#1
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Marine Service Provider
Join Date: May 2013
Location: East Africa
Boat: catalac 10m
Posts: 354
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Becoming a Liveaboard Cruising Sailor
after reading many postings on CF, reading all sailing related literature I could get my hands on, and being a liveaboard in the East African tropics on a small old sailing cat since 2007, I am interested to get the view of others how best to become a liveaboard. First I do think there are many different types of liveaboard and it might help to create categories, i.e. marina based, on the hook, retired, monohull, dat, size of yacht, former experience, cruising areas planning to visit, passagemakers, circumnavigators.... you get my drift. This might help aim advise at right people.
Sent from my iPad using Cruisers Sailing Forum
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23-10-2014, 14:45
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#2
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Registered User
Join Date: Aug 2009
Location: Bahamas/Florida
Boat: Solaris Sunstar 36' catamaran
Posts: 2,686
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Re: Becoming a Liveaboard Cruising Sailor
Quote:
Originally Posted by Goosebumps
---- I am interested to get the view of others how best to become a liveaboard. First I do think there are many different types of liveaboard and it might help to create categories,
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Move on a boat lol.
I have to admit I don't see the point in categories.
__________________
Sail Fast Live Slow
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23-10-2014, 14:55
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#3
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Moderator Emeritus
Join Date: Oct 2013
Location: Jacksonville/ out cruising
Boat: Island Packet 38
Posts: 31,351
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Re: Becoming a Liveaboard Cruising Sailor
I can see a significant difference between being in a Marina and being on the hook.
Marina, unlimited power and water, shore access easy, bathrooms, washing clothes easy, ought to be good protection from weather, no ground tackle requirements, no dinghy. Living in a Marina is almost the same as apartment living?
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23-10-2014, 15:31
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#4
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Registered User
Join Date: Jan 2012
Location: San Diego
Boat: Pearson 39-2 "Sea Story"
Posts: 1,109
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Re: Becoming a Liveaboard Cruising Sailor
Quote:
Originally Posted by a64pilot
I can see a significant difference between being in a Marina and being on the hook.
Marina, unlimited power and water, shore access easy, bathrooms, washing clothes easy, ought to be good protection from weather, no ground tackle requirements, no dinghy. Living in a Marina is almost the same as apartment living?
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I don't remember ever taking my apartment to the pump out station.
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23-10-2014, 15:48
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#5
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Moderator Emeritus
Join Date: Oct 2013
Location: Jacksonville/ out cruising
Boat: Island Packet 38
Posts: 31,351
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Re: Becoming a Liveaboard Cruising Sailor
Why I didn't say just like, but level of difficulty is much less in a Marina don't you think?
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23-10-2014, 16:01
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#6
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Registered User
Join Date: Jun 2010
Location: Gig Harbor, WA
Boat: Prior boats: Transpac 49; DeFever 54
Posts: 2,874
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Re: Becoming a Liveaboard Cruising Sailor
There are many levels ofliveaboards ranging from minimalists aboard a 22 footer with a small stove and a bucket to a floating mansion with 3-4 heads, several staterooms and more appliances than most kitchens shoreside. Your choices will be determined by your economic situation, your basic, perceived needs and whether you have a partner, family or friends willing to share your chosen floating home. Additionally, you ability to maintain your vessel will also limit your selection. Those are just a few of the things that I think should be considered before electing this lifestyle... Phil
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23-10-2014, 16:39
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#7
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Registered User
Join Date: Mar 2007
Posts: 207
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Re: Becoming a Liveaboard Cruising Sailor
Quote:
Originally Posted by Goosebumps
after reading many postings on CF, reading all sailing related literature I could get my hands on, and being a liveaboard in the East African tropics on a small old sailing cat since 2007, I am interested to get the view of others how best to become a liveaboard. First I do think there are many different types of liveaboard and it might help to create categories, i.e. marina based, on the hook, retired, monohull, dat, size of yacht, former experience, cruising areas planning to visit, passagemakers, circumnavigators.... you get my drift. This might help aim advise at right people.
Sent from my iPad using Cruisers Sailing Forum
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I have always used the terms: Coastal Cruising, Island Hopping, and Blue Water Cruising. All requiring different boats, skills, and certainly life styles.
Getting to your question and rephrasing it to; living on board and your life style. Well, we all treat it a little different.
My experiance the last 10 years on a 30', doing it part time, would be coastal cruising South Florida and the Florida Keys. Sailing 2-3 days up to18 days. Great memories of it because I have just sold the boat. The wife and I talk about sailing a lot and want to take it to the next step.
A catamaran is on the horizon of our dreams, taking it from Coastal Cruising to Island Hopping and then Blue Water sailing. But it does not matter where, we just want to be out there!
Still not retired but working on the End Strategy. The lifestyle? Well, it will be our very own and being one with it as so many others before us.
__________________
David
69Morgan30'
CarolAnn
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23-10-2014, 16:43
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#8
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Registered User
Join Date: Mar 2007
Posts: 207
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Re: Becoming a Liveaboard Cruising Sailor
Quote:
Originally Posted by Goosebumps
after reading many postings on CF, reading all sailing related literature I could get my hands on, and being a liveaboard in the East African tropics on a small old sailing cat since 2007, I am interested to get the view of others how best to become a liveaboard. First I do think there are many different types of liveaboard and it might help to create categories, i.e. marina based, on the hook, retired, monohull, dat, size of yacht, former experience, cruising areas planning to visit, passagemakers, circumnavigators.... you get my drift. This might help aim advise at right people.
Sent from my iPad using Cruisers Sailing Forum
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"being a liveaboard in the East African tropics"
I would like to hear from you about your experience where you were at.
I'm sure you can spin a good story!
__________________
David
69Morgan30'
CarolAnn
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23-10-2014, 22:57
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#9
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Marine Service Provider
Join Date: May 2013
Location: East Africa
Boat: catalac 10m
Posts: 354
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Re: Becoming a Liveaboard Cruising Sailor
Quote:
Originally Posted by DWT
"being a liveaboard in the East African tropics"
I would like to hear from you about your experience where you were at.
I'm sure you can spin a good story!
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I think all liveaboards can spin good stories, I can see from the replies so far that categories could work, mind you not judging
one type of liveaboard being better than the other. It is very personal for each of us how we liveaboard. That I rather stay on the hook is both making economical sense and having lived, worked in East Africa gave me unique persoective on where to liveaboard. I can leave my cat with my assistant, East African qualified as skipper who enjoys the
ife as much as I do. The idea of categories is to assist those who identify themselves with certain type of liveaboard to be able to go and get experience required for their liveaboard aspirations.
Sent from East Africa via Cruisers Sailing Forum app
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24-10-2014, 02:57
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#10
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Moderator
Join Date: Nov 2011
Location: aboard, cruising in Australia
Boat: Sayer 46' Solent rig sloop
Posts: 28,432
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Re: Becoming a Liveaboard Cruising Sailor
You know, Goosebumps,
I think "liveaboard" may be an irrelevant term. As A64pilot suggested, living aboard in a marina may seem like an adventure to some, but, at least for me, was experienced as a stage between the workaday world and cruising full time. Living on the boat is just living. We live, wherever we are--until we don't, of course. So thinking in terms of a liveaboard adventure, which we sometimes read here on CF, seems to miss the point to me. But then, that's just my bias.
Ann
__________________
Who scorns the calm has forgotten the storm.
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24-10-2014, 03:08
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#11
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Marine Service Provider
Join Date: May 2013
Location: East Africa
Boat: catalac 10m
Posts: 354
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Re: Becoming a Liveaboard Cruising Sailor
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ann T. Cate
You know, Goosebumps,
I think "liveaboard" may be an irrelevant term. As A64pilot suggested, living aboard in a marina may seem like an adventure to some, but, at least for me, was experienced as a stage between the workaday world and cruising full time. Living on the boat is just living. We live, wherever we are--until we don't, of course. So thinking in terms of a liveaboard adventure, which we sometimes read here on CF, seems to miss the point to me. But then, that's just my bias.
Ann
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It is not an irrelevant term as you prove with your posting. It needs thinking around it different than always assuming liveaboard life is what one on her/his own imagines is meant with the term when mentioned in CF, literature. When you search net "liveaboard" you will end up in liveaboard dive boats offering diving whole living aboard, short term, in exotic pkaces. Nothing wrong with that of course. I struggled to find my own liveaboard identity if I may call it. Resulting in taking a long time to prepare for how I liveaboard now. If I would have understood the liveaboard variety better probably I would have gotten much faster much better informed much safer to my present on the hook life. One clear example is art of anchoring, typical very much experience needed to live on the hook.
Sent from East Africa via Cruisers Sailing Forum app
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24-10-2014, 06:43
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#12
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Moderator Emeritus
Join Date: Nov 2008
Location: Lived aboard & cruised for 45 years,- now on a chair in my walk-in closet.
Boat: Morgan OI 413 1973 - Aythya
Posts: 8,455
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Re: Becoming a Liveaboard Cruising Sailor
There is another dynamic for liveaboards that has not been addressed. Many, like ourselves, don't have a single mode of living aboard. We cycle through four phases of life aboard.
1- We spend time at marinas near family. This is usually during the "holiday season" from Thanksgivving through the new year.
2- We spend time making short hops from port to port and usually anchoring out or on short term moorings.
3- After full provisioning we spend time in the "wilderness" spending time in places where we are with few or no others.
4- About two months total of each year we are off with backpacks or carry-on luggage traveling to distant places and leaving our boat empty and secured.
I think these types of changes in how people living aboard are more common than a static form of life aboard.
__________________
Take care and joy, Aythya crew
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24-10-2014, 06:58
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#13
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Registered User
Join Date: Apr 2012
Location: Florida
Boat: Seawind 1000xl
Posts: 2,592
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Re: Becoming a Liveaboard Cruising Sailor
There are different types of liveaboards, and cruisers. One of the biggest differences I see is where you are living aboard. At a place like Boot Key it is an easy walk to the Home Depot, Publix, and Kmart where you can easily get lots of the little things necessary for living. The Marina there offers mail, UPS, and FedX delivery so you can order parts you can not source locally. I know of horror stories about trying to get necessary things to maintain your boat in more exotic locations, and have to wonder what the process to get boat parts would be in tropical East Africa.
I would also point out there is a type of liveaboard I see where the person is simply looking for a place to sleep at night and the boat they are living on is never moved from the place it is anchored.
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24-10-2014, 07:20
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#14
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Registered User
Join Date: Oct 2012
Location: Wherever the boat is
Boat: Cape Dory 33
Posts: 1,021
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Re: Becoming a Liveaboard Cruising Sailor
Quote:
Originally Posted by Hudson Force
There is another dynamic for liveaboards that has not been addressed. Many, like ourselves, don't have a single mode of living aboard. We cycle through four phases of life aboard.
1- We spend time at marinas near family. This is usually during the "holiday season" from Thanksgivving through the new year.
2- We spend time making short hops from port to port and usually anchoring out or on short term moorings.
3- After full provisioning we spend time in the "wilderness" spending time in places where we are with few or no others.
4- About two months total of each year we are off with backpacks or carry-on luggage traveling to distant places and leaving our boat empty and secured.
I think these types of changes in how people living aboard are more common than a static form of life aboard.
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I see this as very similar to what we have planned also. We love both peace and solitude and the excitement of the big city, but would tire of either if life were confined to only one or the other. We also love land travel and visiting inland relatives and will keep our teardrop camper and camping gear stashed so that we can take extended land cruises when our souls are craving deep breaths of forest air or the company of our loved ones.
It intrigues me that so many people seem so keen on the idea of categorizing and defining every little aspect of life. Lives and lifestyles are as varied and unique as the number of people living them. Why pidgeon hole ourselves into one "category" of anything when there is such a variety of things to do and see available to anyone with the free time and resources to get to them.
If you want to be a liveaboard, move aboard. I don't think it's necessary to "pick a category" as, for us, this goes totally against the whole reason to move aboard in the first place. I think most cruisers are seeking the freedom and flexibility to change.....our location, our weather, our neighbors, whatever needs changing, at any given point in time which probably leads the majority of cruisers through the various categories at one time or the other.
__________________
Cruising the waterways and traveling the highways looking for fun and adventure wherever it might be found.
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24-10-2014, 07:26
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#15
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cat herder, extreme blacksheep
Join Date: Jul 2008
Location: furycame alley , tropics, mexico for now
Boat: 1976 FORMOSA yankee clipper 41
Posts: 18,967
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Re: Becoming a Liveaboard Cruising Sailor
live your life without labels and enjoy what comes along.
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