Living Aboard

We are live-aboards. We leave the apartment for the boat in the summer, and have been doing this for  three years now. We like it, and would love to be out here year round, but the white stuff eventually falls from the sky, and we get back to the city. The transition from apartment to boat can be a little crazy, as we always forget to bring things to the boat. Having enough underwear for work should have been at the top of the list. We still do not know where the hand held GPS is, and forgetting about the garbage in a 90 degree apartment is not very neighborly.

Life afloat has it's drawbacks. Here is a small list of things that I don't like about living on the water.

1. Spiders. I hate spiders, and they are everywhere.
2. Bird shit. Not much I can do about it. Just keep cleaning. Bird crap on the jib sheets really pisses me off. You notice it, then get busy, forget about washing your hands, then it all comes back after biting into that apple. I tie off the sheets up at the pulpit now, so the damn birds have nothing to perch to, except the new lifelines.
3. Cleaning the deck. Just seems to take forever on this tub.
4. Storing clothes, specifically work clothes. I basically go to work wrinkled, Deb will iron, then hang her stuff everywhere. Right now there are at least 10 items hanging in the salon. I have a folded pile in the aft cabin waiting for a place to store them.
5. Going to work. We get up at 4:45 AM to make it by 6. It's about an hour to get there.
6. Project work amidst all the getting ready for work, and dinner, and what not.
7. Getting the boat sail ready. When you live aboard you tend to place things like you would on land, then when you want to sail, everything as to be stored first. Does not work for a quick evening sail.
8. Neighbors close enough to pass the Grey Poupon. We are blessed with an empty slip on one side, and folks who only come out on Friday afternoons on the other. Otherwise privacy becomes an issue.
9. Typical Marina stuff like music too loud or dogs barking and pooping. We have a guy who plays the same CD every weekend for everyone to hear. I am deleting all my Little Feat music, as I  can't stand them anymore. How can he listen to that over and over. Variety buddy!
10. Musical cars. People are obsessed with parking spaces. If one frees up, they actually run to move their cars. One person moved a car up 2 spaces. Another guy stages his truck close by, parked illegally, so that he can get a quicker jump on a spot. I admit it's fun to watch.
11. Killer algae. Just knowing there is a potential health risk in the water kind of takes something away from the surroundings.
12. Hitting my head, stubbing my toes. I don't know if it's because of my big head, but I still seem to keep whacking my noggin on stuff. Deb head butted the solar panels a couple weeks ago. The panels are OK.  I wear shoes on the deck now. Got tired of crying and cursing every day.
13. Interior clutter. We have to get better at this, else we'll never sail much. We can't be putting things away for an hour before a sail. This is kind of a repeat, but it really really bugs me.
14. Living an hour away from our daughter Kelly. We would see Kell about once a week when in the city. Now it's too long between visits.
15. A small galley. I love to cook, and Deb doesn't mind the cleanup, so it works, but the galley is very tight. I'm still frustrated by this as I am a spread it out, use every pan, and device kind of cook. I am slowly adapting. Slowly. 
16. Storage. We can't bring everything. Only essentials on board. Tough thing to do. I like to have every tool I can think of aboard. Right now the van is tool storage, but I have to find a way to get the right stuff on the ship.  
17. Getting connected. We really like having internet access. We could care less about TV, but need to be connected these days. WiFi was horrible out here until recently. Not bad now, but still kind of slow. When we're cruising we can be on WiFi, as we'll be distracted by the cruising life, but at a dock, when still in the working world we would like something faster, so we fork over too much to Time Warner. Broadband is nice, but not the price.

That's not a very large list, and nothing on it is a deal breaker. We're in it for the long haul. Maybe I'll post a "what we like" list, but I think any sailor knows what's on that.

Going to make a serious dent in some projects this weekend, and get some sailing in too. Better quit typing and get a move on. Do you get many spiders when you're in saltwater?

Cheers!