Two Who Got Away (Life On A Small Boat)
(Page 2 of 5)
July/August 1972
By Lynn Monfort
Although we've seen others live in much smaller vessels, we picked a 30-footer and it seems "right" to us. Still, we're constantly asked how we manage to exist in such a small area.
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If there was anything good about our experience with the old powerboat, it was that we learned how to live very simply by discarding all the unnecessary junk that seems to accumulate as long as there's room for it. Only the essentials survive on a live-aboard boat . . . there's just no room for anything else.
Granted, then, that a vessel's limited space dictates, to a certain extent, what stays and what goes when you move aboard . . . but, once divorced from the flotsam and jetsam most of us drag through life, it's amazing how little it's missed. Besides, there's always enough space for the important things . . . Bob's guitar, my typewriter, our books, even an oil painting given to us by a talented friend.
A seaworthy, fairly new, wood or fiberglass live-aboard boat in which you can cruise big water will run you between $5,000 and $10,000. Acquiring the craft, however, is only the beginning. Even a new vessel requires a good deal of maintenance and boat yards, for the most part, are bandits (my apologies to the few honest ones).
You'll soon learn to cut those upkeep expenses, however Bob and I, for instance, spent one afternoon making mosquito covers for the hatches and companionway of our new pride and joy. A "professional" job would have cost at least $50. We did it ourselves with about $10 worth of materials and our workmanship is infinitely superior to that found in most marine products.
Just finding a place to keep a boat when you're not cruising can also run into dollars. Anchoring offshore is least expensive . . . but, unless you have a rich uncle or a fat inheritance, you'll have to spend at least part of each year laboring ashore with the rest of us. During the season that we work on Florida Gold Coast we moor Aries at a comfortable, protected marina just south of Ft. Lauderdale. Dockage, utilities and shower facilities add up to a little over $60 a month. In most areas though, dockage is no real problem. We know of one enterprising couple that anchored their ketch (at no charge) in the middle of Biscayne Bay and used a dingy to get to and from work in Miami.
But, once you have your boat, where will you live . . . area how? Well, the "where" is easy: almost any place that there water will do, although most of us feel that a tropical or subtropical climate is best. For one thing, such a climate guarantees pleasant weather for year-round cruising and, for another, it goes a long way toward solving the question of "how" (there's an abundance of free food in and around the warmer seas.)
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