What did you do with all of your stuff?
We got rid of much of our belongings by shuffling them off to family members and friends, with the caveat that if this little plan of ours goes horribly wrong, we would like our TV back. So far, this arrangement has worked out well. We did keep some things that we just couldn't bear to part with (my backpacking gear and motorcycle come to mind) in storage in Seattle.
How do you guys live in that small of a space?
Christy: "Am I in your way?"
Me: "Yes."
Christy: "Hm."
We have this conversation alot. The roles get reversed but the content is always the same. We've found an equilibrium living on board and the space has never been an issue. You start to understand when you're in the other person's way and you do what you can to get out of the way.
As for storage, you learn to live with what you need plus just a little bit more. Generally, if something new is coming aboard, something old best be getting tossed overboard to make room. Every nook and cranny on a boat is used for storage of some kind and you start to figure out where things can go. We started out our journey with a stand up shower packed six feet high with food. Somehow, we (Christy) found room for all of those stores so we can now take showers.
What ever happened to Shithead, the cat?
Ah, Shithead. We miss that little guy like crazy. We delivered him to Christy's parents house in the woods of Connecticut which might better be described as Shithead's Dream Land. He gets to go outside and hunt small animals. He gets wet food all day long whenever he wants it. He has thousands of square feet to wander indoors and can nap in a different corner every hour of every day and not run out of corners for months. He gets affection when he wants it and from what we can tell, is now running the household to his exact specification.
How much did you know about boats before embarking on this adventure?
Boats have a pointy end that goes forward.
They float although I didn't (mmmmm... don't) understand the physics of this.
They have a language unto their own.
Everything else I know about boats now, I've since learned. My point is, this way of life doesn't require you to be born into a boat family. It doesn't require that you learned how to tie a bowline before you could talk (although you really should learn at some point). You can learn this stuff.
Christy, on the other hand, has known most of this. She was born into a boat family and it's possible she did learn how to tie a bowline before she could talk. What she didn't know was the cruising end of the spectrum. Now she can tear apart a marine head and rebuild the pump faster than I can say "The aft head pump is leaking again."
Buy some
books. Take some classes. Read some
websites. You'll have it figured out before you know it.
How do you do laundry?
Laundrymats are generally part and parcel with marinas and we don't like to (can't afford to) stay at marinas much. We do some laundry by hand out of buckets. We use a toilet plunger (that was bought especially for laundry, is marked as Laundry Only and has never been used in a toilet) to agitate the clothes. We use Doc Bronners soap for laundry soap as this stuff seems to be about the most environmentally friendly soap you can dump overboard. Plus it smells minty and you haven't lived until you've pulled on a fresh pair of peppermint smelling underwear.
Perhaps that's a conversation for another time.
How do you take a shower?
By standing in the shower and turning the water on.
We have an enclosed standing shower in the bow of the boat. We also have a heat exchanger on the engine that heats freshwater for us so we generally have hot water for the taking. We prefer to find a freshwater source elsewhere and fill up our solar shower if we can. Showers go through a massive amount of water of which we have a finite supply. We've become a bit, errmmm,
miserly with our showers earning us the nicknames "Stinky 1" and "Stinky 2".
Why do you have such a ridiculous anchor?
Oh man, don't get me started.
The short version of the story goes like this: I like to sleep at night. The long version of the story can be found
here.
