Living on a boat isn't easy, and it isn't cheap. It's a ton of fun, with a lot of rewards - but it's also a ton of work, and boats are very, very needy things.
Living on a boat is practically a full time job! We're busy, all day, everyday. Projects, maintenance, cleaning, lugging water, batteries, food, garbage, the dog. We do these things EVERYDAY. You'd think living on a boat would be the life...it's a really exhausting life! Plus, we're about 1/4 mile off shore. So all of this is done with multiple dinghy trips. We probably spend 4 hours or so a day doing these things.
The boating community is very close knit. We spend a lot of time helping people out with projects of their own. In turn, we also get a lot of help on ours. This is one of our favorite aspects of this lifestyle. This week, we're helping our friend, Skip, sell his beautiful 41' Island Trader ketch. We'd buy it if we had $40,000. He restored the boat to immaculate condition....we drool over it daily (it's right next door from our own boat).
Spellbound, Skip's boat
It has hand carved designs on the doors, all teak.
Original helm!
Skip (aka, residential badass), the man himself! Can you believe he's in his sixties?!
Then, or course, the social life of the boater is quite rigorous. We share the harbor with a ton of other boaters - who have become our close friends. We probably spend several hours a day socializing. Whether we want to or not, whether we have the time to or not. There have been days when we've sat in the marina office for five hours, not having gotten a single thing done because one person after the next came up to talk - we timed it.
Then there's playtime. We like to explore; sailing, snorkeling, kite boarding, swimming, live theater, visit other Keys - when we get a chance.
This is our life in a nutshell. It's a bizarre life. It's a good life. :)
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