Beginnings... sort of.

To misquote the Stones, what a drag it is being broke...

Without going into too many specifics, our financial situation for the last few years has been... abysmal.  We've been fortunate over this time to have had friends and family in position to assist us when we really needed it, and have repaid or are in the process of repaying these debts.  In our situation, our rent is our single biggest living expense.  Seeing how much we'd benefit from a reduction in that expense, we've begun putting feelers out amongst our friends who have boats and may know people who would be interested in renting out their boats, potentially a rent-to-own scenario as well.  This is a longshot, however, and I don't see us moving in that direction unless something happens.  The world is a magical place, and anything is possible...

That being said, the financial hurdle at the beginning is daunting, but not unachievable.  What we have to figure out from the onset is what we truly want in our new residence.  Some things just are mandatory, like (and in no particular order):

1) Separate and private berths for us and Kiddo - We like to have privacy, and want to ensure Kiddo has his fair share of privacy, a place for him to go to when he wants to escape us for a bit (and I know he'll want that more as he grows older).  There are a great number of boats where there's no doors between the berths and main cabin, and although we may be able to install doors in some of these, we'd rather they be standard on the design.

2)  A boat between 34 and 40 feet in length - There is a LOT of discussion over how big/how small of a boat a liveaboard needs, especially when it's more than two (in other words, a family with kids).  What the consensus comes down to is a pair of sayings: Get the biggest boat you can afford, and get the smallest boat you feel comfortable in.  There has to be a happy medium between the two: Get the smallest boat you can feel comfortable in while getting the biggest boat you can afford.  One suggestion in a great book was to get a slightly smaller/less expensive boat in order to purchase a storage unit to keep our paintings (some from my Grandma that are priceless... to me, anyway), our book library (while allowing access to our books so we can swing by periodically and never worry about late fees), and other assorted belongings.  The costs of boat ownership really start growing after about 40 feet, so I want that as a maximum.

3) A Cabin Height at least 6'2" - I'm tall.  I don't want to stoop whenever I walk around my home.  Besides, Kiddo gives every indication that he'll have a height comparable to my own, and I don't want him uncomfortable either if we still have the same boat by then.

4)  Outside Area for Entertaining - We'll (eventually) be scuba diving and I'll want an area that will be easy to maneuver in gear and Kelly would be able to host outdoor activities (4th of July from the boat is something I'm personally looking forward to witnessing).  And a little place to grow culinary herbs would be great, too... and surprisingly wouldn't take up too much space.

5)  The ability to get good ventilation - VERY important, especially with shipboard heads.  Many are the horror stories about the smell of the marine heads!

6)  Diesel Engine(s) - I'd prefer two engines as opposed to one (for redundancy's sake), but I would MUCH rather be running a diesel engine rather than gas.  It would cost a lot of money to retrofit a boat from gas to diesel, so starting out with a diesel (or two) is ideal.  Hopefully #4 is taken care of, as diesel smells pretty bad too.

7)  A Fiberglass hull - Wood as a building material sucks when you expose it to water on a constant basis.  Fiberglass was introduced in the 1960's and revolutionized the boat building industry.  In the mid 70's, they reduced the thickness and strength of the fiberglass, making the boats structurally less sound.  Our price range (when we have a nest egg built up) will put us looking for older boats as a starter liveaboard situation, so we will be doing our due diligence when we narrow our searches.  We also realize that manufacturers and the specific shipyards that the boats were built in play a major role in the quality as well, so I've become a member on several forum sites for cruisers, liveaboards, and power boats so I have access to a wide variety of experiential data from actual boat owners.  My mileage may vary; grains of salt are always on standby for taking the information with.

This is what we've got, for starters.  Ultimately, this boat that we have at first is primarily for living aboard and using the savings to (eventually) make investments that will purchase for us our serious cruiser.  Although we do plan on making cruises periodically (mostly to Catalina Island and maybe as far north as San Francisco and as far south as Baja Mexico for the Gray Whale migration), we're going to need to stay tethered to SoCal for the foreseeable future.  Which leads us to the most typical question for the beginner liveaboard:

WHAT TYPE OF BOAT ARE WE LOOKING FOR?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?

A quite common question, actually.  On Yachtworld.com, the separation starts with sail or power.  Sailboats, because of the necessity of being more aerodynamic for the sake of its wind power, typically run smaller than power boats for roominess.  Power, then, would be our choice on this one.  On Yachtworld, under power, it's broken down into the following categories (and many boats are listed under multiple categories):

Aft Cabin
Antique and Classic
Barge
Bowrider
Cargo Ship
Catamaran
Center Cockpit
Center Console
Commercial Boat
Convertible Boat
Cruise Ship
Cruiser
Cruiser/Racer
Cuddy Cabin

Cutter

Daysailer

Dive Boat

Downeast

Dragger

Express Cruiser

Flybridge

Freshwater Fishing

House Boat

Jet Boat

Lobster Boat

Mega Yacht

Motor Yacht

Motorsailer

Multi-Hull

Other

Passenger

Pilothouse

Pontoon Boat

Power Catamaran

Racing Sailboat

Racing/High Performance

Rigid Inflatable Boat (RIB)

Saltwater Fishing

Sloop

Sport Fishing

Sports Cruiser

Tender

Trawler

Troller

Tug

Needless to say, it appears daunting...  A lot of these can be eliminated as liveaboard situations (Rigid Inflatable Boat?), although it's better to put together your list of requirements like we did and plug it into the filter at Yachtworld and BoatTrader and arrange the prices from lowest to highest and keep the location along the West Coast and...voila!  A list of some potential boats!  But an interesting style caught our attention, and our search narrowed towards those...

Changes in Latitudes, Changes in Attitudes: Or, How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Tell Our Loved Ones

After having made the decision to become liveaboards, we were faced with telling all of our family and friends.  It's not the telling that's difficult (all it takes are Facebook posts and maybe a link to this blog) but the inevitable questions and concerns that will pop up.

My family expects crazy ideas from me.  I've always been a dreamer; I talked about sailing around the world with my childhood friend Wolf (what an awesome name!) when I was in first grade.  I'm the one who comes up with the great ideas and begins work on them until becoming distracted by another great idea and start working on that for a while.  Please allow me to point to the demos I've recorded, the novels and short stories in various states of composition, and assorted electronic components strewn around the house as exhibits of these endeavors.  If I was to start off discussing our decision being as advanced as it is at this point (firmly committed to getting our behinds aboard as quickly as possible), they would chalk it up as being par for the course.  In other words, I'm not to be taken seriously.

Kelly is the opposite.  When she sets her attention on something, her tenacity takes over.  She becomes focused on the goal until it's achieved.  In a lot of ways, she is the perfect complement to my dreaming.  I come up with the idea (usually), we investigate what's required, she sets up the steps to follow, and we begin working.  Her pragmatic way of looking at ideas helps keep me grounded in reality... mostly... and her experience working in a library helps us research more efficiently.

We have discussed with most of our closest family and friends the idea of living on a houseboat.  Some know exactly how committed we are to it; others are more in the dark.  We're doing this primarily because many people don't understand what this lifestyle entails and would attempt to argue us out of this "mistake".  I believe these people are well-meaning and I want to ensure these people remain friends.  This is common when people step outside what is considered normal and the unknown can be scary, especially for loved ones.  We realize that the naysayers mostly are looking out for us and are making sure we don't do anything foolish.  That being said, I have had family members (passed on) who have been negative on anything that was out of their sphere of experience and would put down others out of schadenfreude.  I've also had experience with troublemaking friends that never grew out of the high-school drama and attempted to instigate arguments between Kelly and myself in order to (presumably) make themselves feel better about their shortcomings in their own lives and relationships.  If you're considering a life aboard as well, take this into account when discussing the idea with others.  Fear can heighten emotions and cause unintended (or intended) conflicts.

Many people have concerns about this scenario of us living aboard a boat, and that's perfectly fine - as long as our answers can truly alleviate their concerns.  The most popular questions I get usually fall into one of these types:

1)  You don't have any experience.  What are you doing?!?!?!?! - I have had some experience piloting a bass boat on a lake as a kid, thanks to a former stepfather who would usually drink beer while fishing.  Personally, I think it was better to have a sober kid drive than a drunk man.  I also had a little sailing experience at Catalina Island Marine Institute when I was in high school, so I'm not a complete ignoramus.  Either way, we're going to make sure that we take an approved course in boating safety and sailing lessons if we end up going the sailboat route.  We'll be suggesting these items as family gifts for holidays and such, too.  Plus, we do have liveaboard friends who are willing to give us informal lessons until we can take a formal certified course.  It reduces the cost of insurance on the boat, so there's a double incentive.

2)  You complain about how small your apartment is, yet you're going to live on a smaller boat.  You're f(*&^#& crazy! - Well, yes we're crazy.  We're also going to complain and move into something smaller.  Kelly and I lived in a one-bedroom.  Literally a one-bedroom in a boarder-style house.  It was similar to living on a boat in that it was crowded, we had no choice about our furniture, and it was kind of dangerous (it was a rough neighborhood).  When we were checking out Marsha and Dennis' boat, Dennis described living aboard as similar to a mobile home.  Kelly likened it more to the RV lifestyle in that we can take our home on the ocean with us easier than a mobile home would be truly mobile.  It really gives us the opportunity to unclutter our lives (and our closets, living room, kitchen, the list goes on) and load up into a storage unit the things we know we're not going to give up (most of our books, my guitars, paintings/posters, furniture, ad infinitum).  Even with a storage unit, living aboard the boat would be less expensive than our current residence.

I know, I know.  I haven't addressed the cramped quarters, the lack of personal space.  One of the requirements of our future residence is two separate cabins, one for Kiddo and one for us.  The salon (main living room for land-dwellers) would be for all of us, and we could always retreat to our own room for privacy.  For the most part, we'll be docked in San Pedro or somewhere close to the South Bay for parks and other exercise amenities for Christopher and Kelly, plus the added benefit of going out and swimming in other parts of the ocean.  Books and games will always be at the ready for distractions as necessary.

3)  Does this mean you're going to go all over the place?  How reckless of you! - Well, we do plan on cruising a bit... eventually.  We have priorities, and have a plan to allow us a lot more freedom.  When we move on board, we won't be doing anything until we're knowledgeable (see #1 above) and only locally until we're able to do something on a more extended basis.

Ultimately, we want to give Christopher the experiences that can only happen out there in the real world.  He already has a love of the ocean, and this would allow us the opportunity to foster and nurture that love.  Any trips we take will be documented, and we will create a specific website for friends and family to keep in contact with us when we're off following whales... maybe even set up a GoPro to record videos for everyone to live vicariously!

We will be responsible about this.  We're researching, performing our due diligence to ensure we're not blindly storming into waters too far over our heads.  The only way we can prove it, though, is by doing... one step at a time.

Cutting the lines...

This last year has been very difficult.

Almost a year ago, we said goodbye to Kelly's mother Susan Kendall.  When we found out back in 2008 that Kelly was pregnant with Christopher, Susan and her husband Doug found an apartment in the complex next to theirs and helped us get into it so they would be nearby to help.  And they were a Godsend.  They were able to help us by rides, babysitting, dinners, advice, the list goes on...

Then Susan got sick.

It wasn't too long before we started helping out as much as we could with her, making her last days as special as we could.  We even took video of Christopher's perspective on the new Cars ride at Disney's California Adventure so she could experience it vicariously.  I'm grateful I was able to purchase Tito's Tacos for her culinary bucket list she had (she only missed In 'N Out one last time).



Now, nearly a year later, we are adrift in a stagnant sea, waiting for a wind to pick up.  Kelly's been working at the same place her mother worked at before her illness, often being reminded of her in the course of her day.  If not at work, then when she passes the apartment complex next to ours.  We've discussed moving for a while, mentioning Temecula, Ojai, San Diego, and others, but never really feeling like any of these were right.

Then Kelly starts talking about liveaboards.

Living aboard a boat is pretty common; this blog is but one of thousands out there dedicated to discussing this liveaboard lifestyle.  It just had never occurred to Kelly that it was possible to do that without retirement.  In fact, it was the lady who was working in her mother's former position, Marsha, who told Kelly what it was like living on a boat and invited us to come aboard sometime to experience it.  We did, meeting Marsha, her husband Dennis, and their children and grandchildren.  They invited us on a day when they were celebrating their anniversary and their oldest son Dennis' (D for short) birthday.  It gave us a fantastic experience at what a large group of family would be like on board a boat of our own, a plausible possibility with our circle of friends.

Afterwards, in the stability of our apartment (while I wistfully remembered the gentle rocking of a few hours before) we discussed our options for moving forward.  We talked about our reservations and fears, what kind of effect it would have on our Kiddo, and what could go wrong.

We're going to go for it.

This blog is my way of allowing you into our journey towards this off-the-beaten-path lifestyle.  You may be an old friend, a family member checking up on us, a random stranger looking to see what those who have undertaken this journey before you have done and learn from their - our - mistakes.  Regardless of how you ended up here, welcome.  Nothing happens by chance; let's do this.