Let us try again!

I can't believe that it has been over a year since my last post, but I guess life got in the way... again. I did get my job working on towboats which has been great, I make more money than I ever did before, have great benefits and I've seen a huge part of America's navigable waterways. The downside is that I had to get rid of the boat. My buddy who was selling it to me forgot to mention all the back slip fees he owed as well as some other shady dealings. So the dock ended up selling the boat (a month before I was to take over dock payments) with half my stuff on board. All those shirts I was worried about? Well I don't have to worry about them anymore. Which turns out to be a good thing. This little lesson in trust and finance taught me that I really can let go of things that I thought meant something to me. Granted there are a few shirts that I had stashed away that I wish I still had, but alas I don't really need them.

So I was sad that I lost the boat and seemingly my dream to move aboard. I moved back to South Carolina into my mom's house again. It wasn't really all that bad, I work for 28 days straight and then I'm only in SC for 14 days before going back to the boat. However my company doesn't want to pay the ridiculous plane fares they dish out to fly me from Columbia SC, to Houston. So I volunteered to move back to the Tampa area, a place I'm much happier in anyways. This also rekindled the liveaboard dream. This time when I buy a boat though I will do it right. Well that and it's still a year away at least.

I plan to move in with a friend of mine in the middle of April, and over the course of the next year I plan to save around $10,000 for a boat purchase. I've already started saving actually. I'm making my move back to Florida in about two weeks, so as soon as I get off the boat I get to go through the whole throwing out process once again. This time though it'll be getting rid of childhood toys and junk from my mom's house. I have every intention to move back to Florida with my work clothes, about a weeks worth of warm weather clothes, and just a couple of winter clothes (most of which are for work anyways).

The dream may have been postponed, but it is alive and well. I have every faith in myself that I will pull this off. I have a terribly complex yet simple savings plan. In short I have managed to trick myself into thinking that every spare penny that I have is to go into savings, and that my savings account is actually a bill that I have to pay off every time I have more money that what I need for my other bills. I budgeted so that I can have a little fun on my time off, but in all honesty I think I would rather have another job for two weeks so that I can put more money towards a boat.

The only downside I see to my plan occurs when I actually do buy a boat. In about a year from now when I have a boat to live on, my biggest concern is going to be leaving it for such an extended period of time. I mean I'm gone for a month at a time. I know many people leave boats at the dock for months on end with little to no maintenance, but for them it's not their home. And Florida is prime hurricane country. I have friends who would look out for my boat and all, but perhaps I would be better saving for an additional year or two? Yet that just isn't who I am. I have a desire to change my lifestyle to that of a liveaboard. And I'm not about to let a little thing like fear stop me. I don't really plan to be at this job for more than a couple more years anyways. It's just too hard on the body, plus it's a long term health risk. Nothing like breathing benzene every day.

So wish me luck, I'm at it again.

Changes Ahoy!

I'm sitting at my faithful hand-me-down Wal-Mart desk perhaps for one of the last times. Tomorrow I'm headed to New Orleans for a medical physical for a new job, and once I get back, I only have 3 days to make the move to the boat before I once again leave. The laundry machine is working overtime as I am washing my entire wardrobe of clothes and sorting through it to find what I really want to keep.

The storage on my boat isn't all bad actually. There is more than enough for me as a single person. The downside is I have accumulated an unbelievable amount of junk in the last two years. Not to mention once again, my insane amount of clothes. After all, 25 months ago I moved back to Florida with a weeks worth of clothes and my laptop. My how things change.

See, the problem is that nearly every single shirt I own means something to me. I've had this one since college, that one since high school, and, oh my, this one from that time I did that thing I shouldn't talk about. Some are gifts from friends and businesses, others are memories of my father. I think I have full complement of black Daytona Beach biker shirts. Luckily they're all really thin material (maybe cause some are older than I am?) and don't take up hardly any room. To combat this I've decided to let myself have about a dozen shirts, which maybe a a few more than some liveaboards but hey, if I have the room I might as well use it.

The next problem however, what about winter clothes? Or Jackets? Or my suits? Well the winter clothes will just have to make due with three pairs of khaki pants, two pairs of jeans, two or three hoodies, and my Nautica sailing jacket (Foul weather gear not included). Ok so where the heck am I going to put sweatshirts and jackets? I could actually use my hanging locker, if I can bring myself to give up that space, not there is really much in there to begin with. What about the suits? Well I think I'll just get them dry cleaned and have the dry cleaners hold on to them. I've heard of arrangements being made so it makes sense, keeps them off the boat which is a good thing. And do I really need two of them? Probably not, maybe I'll just send one back to my mom to hold on to. Or heck I could get rid of both and just rent. I don't go to many events that actually require me to wear a suit.

Ok so maybe clothing won't be such a problem, at least once I get past having to get rid of 90% of it. I could give it away to charity or sell some of it. But what about my other stuff? My surfboard will fit in the quarter berth, the desk can stay for the next room mate, that huge print of a sailboat tied to the dock can be sold, after all I'll actually be living that scene. My TV is huge, bulky, and never really worked right... it's gone. The electric guitar and amp can go, the acoustic is going to stay. All my beer brewing stuff is going on loan to my room mate. I won't have the time to brew anymore. I don't own a bed or a dresser, instead I now own several berths and a couple of drawers. I already consolidated my movie library to a binder. Who knows where I'm going to stick 9 fishing rods? Somebody has got to need that bed frame I don't have a bed for. Everybody wants my wakeboard.

Moving onto the boat is like starting over again. I was incredibly happy when all I owned in the world was a weeks worth of clothes and my laptop. That time is almost coming again. Except now I have a place to call my own, a place that's got half the living space of my tiny room in my apartment that I sit here typing in. A place where I actually have to think about NOT buying more than buying. And a place where everything will have a home and everything must be in it's home. And hopefully a place where a simpler life will be the life I crave. But now I really have to get rid of that leak in the V berth!

It's been far too long.

It's been quite a while since I posted on this blog about my live aboard dreams. In that time I tried to join the US Coast Guard but was shot down at the last minute due to past problems of delinquent debt. Fair enough, it happens I guess. Unfortunately I also lost my place of residence in the process. I was told I was on my way, so my room mates had gone ahead and replaced me, which was going to effectively leave me homeless. Luckily for me fate had other plans.

A good friend of mine just moved up from his 1982 Hunter 33 to a 38 ft, and he was in dire need of getting rid of his previous boat. The price was right, and the terms of payment more than agreeable so I jumped on it. I'm sure the pressure of being homeless didn't have much to do with it either. In fact it's eerily similar to how he originally ended up with the boat. Any boat you get for this cheap definitely has its quirks. The two biggest would be the smell from the horrid soft holding tank, and the fact that the rudder is bent into an almost perfect "L" shape.

For an added bonus, only two days after buying the boat a job offer from the heavens (or hell, I havn't truly found out yet) descended upon me. It's a chance to be a deckhand for a shipping barge, good pay, great benefits, and the ability to move up rapidly all come with it. For me it's a great, as my list of modifications and additions to the boat grows by a couple of feet every day.

So I've finally gotten my boat, right when I least expected it, and now I can actually start blogging about fixing it, and living aboard. The only downside is I will be gone from my boat for 4 out of every 6 weeks. The upside is having a full two weeks to actually work on the boat.

Until next time,
CJ

Distractions and Dissapointments

The past couple of weeks I've been really distracted from my goal. I had fallen back into my old lifestyle of spending nearly every penny I had and living from paycheck to paycheck. My savings has actually gone backwards! Fortunately it was partially due to real life issues that needed to be taken care of. I have fairly bad eye sight and needed to get new contacts, unfortunately I don't have insurance for that. There goes 150 bucks from my already inflexible budget. My car needed a little love too, and since it gets me to and from my job, I figured it deserved it. Money has been tight, but I should be back on schedule now, albeit a couple hundred behind but back to budget anyways. In order to regain my missing money, I've devised a plan! Big surprise there I know, I mean I have plans for everything, getting a boat, how I'm going to get the boat, how I'm going to save for it, what I'm going to do with it, what features I'm going to put in it. But, that's half the fun isn't it?

I went surfing the other day and some of my friends and I decided that the beach we were at wasn't all that great, and the beach across the inlet was a better break. So what do a couple of surf bums do? We paddle across the channel. About halfway across I was really feeling it, and by 3/4ths of the way I was exhausted and actually starting to be swept out to sea. I obviously made it back to shore, and even caught some waves, but more importantly it taught me something. I'm really out of shape compared to just a short while ago. I once had a plan that I followed as far as weight watching and exercise, and in this plan if I did my goals for the day I put X amount of money into a jar. The idea was to save up for something you wanted over time, while getting healthier. I liked the plan, and sitting on my desk next to me is the jar with the proceeds from the last time I did it. So I figured I would kill two birds with one stone, as the proverb goes. I am going to set up about 5 daily goals for myself, and 2 or 3 weekly ones, assign a value to each and deposit money into the jar. Not only will this help get me back on track with my finances, but it will also help get me back into shape so perhaps I can enjoy surfing a little more next time.

I devised yet another idea along the same lines as the previous example. I swear to much and I don't really like it. I may be a sailor, but I'm also educated to some degree at least. There is no reason that I should have as foul of a mouth as I do. I created a "swear box" and will deposit a quarter for each swear word. Now this might sound like a good reason to swear more, but this is coming out of my very meager spending allowance. Trust me, I don't like giving up leisure money anymore than I like giving up a kidney.

As for distractions, the other half of this week's title, work was an excuse for several weeks, but now it's moved on to going out with friends, and it's taken me a huge amount of self restraint to stop doing it so much. I've also been a little liberal with my money too. This is bad since most of my hobbies now cost quite a bit. I no longer have a surf board of my own, and it's really hard for me to fight the urge to go out and buy one. I love kayaking, but I have nowhere to store a kayak and I really won't when I get the boat. All in all, I just need to get back into my routine, cut back on the beers, exercise more, save more, and maybe land some kind of second job since the one I thought I was going to get fell through. Looks like I've got some work to do.

Different Reactions

I apologize that I haven't been posting much lately. I've been rebuilding a West Marine store in Tampa, which consumes a whopping 11-13 hours of my day. Not to worry though, I have thrown some more money in the bank towards the boat, and I'm getting tons of overtime and bonus pay for this, all of which is also going towards my future boat. The once and future boat? I also wanted to thank everyone that has emailed me and commented on my blogs, it means a ton to me and it is an inspiration to update this blog more often, Kudos to you!

But, what I really wanted to talk about was that I suddenly noticed a distinct difference in attitudes between my friends here in FL, and my friends elsewhere. I recently wrote how I felt many people were sort of looking down on the prospect, or promise in my case, to move aboard, family and close friends included. However, it's been my close friends here that have shown a different side. For the most part, they're either indifferent, or as the majority of them seem to be, enthusiastic for me. It's a nice change from what I was experiencing. The fact that many of my friends work in the marine retail industry has very little to do with this. (sarcasm included.)

I have a friend who lives on his boat here in St. Pete. He scraped and fought and struggled to get his 33 Hunter to live on and to move back to FL in. He's not only an inspiration, he's also a means of conveying my dream to others. People look at him and realize it's not some ludicrous idea to live on a floating home. They understand it's feasible and most of them are actually jealous of him. So with hope and determination I drive forward, even though I have to wake up in a couple of hours, all in the name of a dream.

Live Aboard Dreaming

For the past couple of days I have been searching the internet looking for potential boat models. It is way to soon to narrow the search down much as I still do not have much money in the bank. I did figure that it was worth getting an idea for what features I really wanted and which ones I could live without. It was during this glorified form of window shopping that I realized one big thing. Pretty much any boat in the price range I am looking at will need at least a fair amount of TLC and more than likely will need all it's systems redone to my expectations. This train of thought segwayed right into another thought, what exactly do I want to be able to do with this boat?

Five years ago I would have been content with just a dock boat, one that had a slip in a marina, never moved, and was plugged into shore power every single day of the week. All the comforts of home in a smaller space that floats. Rising marina fees have helped rid me of that idea, as well as my nearly insatiable desire for adventure. It is kind of interesting to think that a few years ago moving onto a boat seemed like an adventure, and in some ways still does. Yet once you get used to the idea it starts to lose it's adventurous appeal. I know that I would still have adventures even if I never left the dock, but I started to yearn for more, and short day sails weren't going to cut it.

As I eventually moved beyond the idea of a semi-land based life, I started thinking about coastal and tropical cruising. I hate the cold, and no hate is not too strong of a word, in fact I would use a stronger one if I could think of one. Coastal and Tropical cruising sounded like a grand adventure. New ports, new countries, different cultures, and a much more self sufficient boat. No longer would I have all the comforts of home at my disposal instantly. Power, water, and storage started to become a concern. Seaworthiness also started to come into play. Yes it's true almost any boat under the right skipper and with proper preparation can handle nearly any weather, I would like to help myself out a little, if there's one thing the sea has taught me so far, it's modesty. So I now had a whole new idea of what I wanted and my boat choices became fewer and more specialized, though at the time I wasn't seriously looking for a boat.

Recently the romantic tales of blue water cruisers have crept into my mind. Coastal cruising still sounds like fun, but it's more something I would want to do on foreign coasts. I've always admired the blue water boats and their ability to bring people back to port safe in all kinds of weather. But this posed even more considerations and challenges, the least not being money. Power now became incredibly important, though with traditional backups to electricity there my dependence could be lowered. Being of a generation that calls and complains when the internet much less my electricity goes down, I figure I might as well be able to have some of the comforts that are ingrained in my lifestyle. Water is now more important, especially storage of said water. Holding tanks take up lots of room, room I need for the next problem, food. I would need to be able to store at least three times the food I would expect to need in case of bad weather or repairs, or even worse. Money is the final factor. It's something I sorely lack, and blue water boats and their equipment are not cheap. Luckily for me I'm pretty good at working on boats, and I have a good deal of knowledge as to what needs to be done to make a boat blue water ready.

So there I have it, I know what I want the boat to be able to do. It must be able to become a blue water cruising boat. It doesn't have to start out that way, in fact chances of me getting a boat ready for this on my meager budget is rather slim. I've also decided that I want the boat to be able to be livable on the hook for extended periods of time while I'm outfitting it. Electricity and water being the main concerns there. Even if I never got to do a true blue water passage I would most likely enjoy tricking out my boat for such a trip. Some people have hobbies they spend wads of cash on, my hobby just happens to be boats (well I guess it's my profession too, ain't I lucky?). I would rather have a boat capable of sailing around the world without have to touch a dock than have a boat that I wouldn't trust away from it. Hopefully my next post or two will be about what I plan to do with my boat as far as it's on board systems go, and that is of course subject to change as I learn more. And who knows, five years ago I thought it was adventurous to leave land based life for life at the dock, three years ago coastal cruising was the new adventure, now it's blue water cruising. Maybe in another 3 years I'll be looking to get to the outer space. And just think, all these changes to my dream without ever having lived on a boat, I can only wait to see how my dreams will change once I move aboard.

A little negativity

I've been encountering a bit of negativity concerning my desire to move aboard. Some of it has come from the expected places such as family, but some of it has completely blindsided me. No matter what people say I'm going forward with this yet it's kind of interesting to step back and view their opinions. It's also a bit frustrating and maybe even a tad depressing to not get the support I was expecting.

I've gotten a little bit of resistance from my mother, and that is to be expected. She views the live aboard life as a slightly more dangerous way to live. Yes it's true that houses don't normally sink out from under you, but then again they do sink a little and cause foundation problems. As I live in FL, she's also worried about hurricanes and this is a completely worthwhile fear. As far as I can see having a boat you live on is not any worse than having a house by the water, a hurricane will probably do more damage to the houses than the boats if they're moored up properly and prepared for the storm. Speaking of storms, with storms comes lightning and I'm sure that has got her a little worried as well. She knows I want to live on a sailboat and she also knows they have big metal sticks that reach up into the sky, just asking for a lightning strike. There isn't a whole lot I can do about this one, except ground the boat properly and hope I never get hit. Her house in SC has been hit twice, the most strikes on any single sailboat in Tampa bay, aka the lightning capital of the US, is one. There are hundreds if not thousands of sailboats here and most never get hit, I seriously doubt if I really have that much to worry about. Needless to say however if a lightning storm does come up, I will be quite far away from my mast.

The next big thing I noticed was from friends. My best friend from high school seemed to be putting down the idea of me getting a boat to live on. This was quite unexpected as he has always supported me, at least verbally which is more than I can honestly say for him. But if anyone knew about achieving your dreams it's Zach. After high school he worked and scrapped and saved, and worked some more to get enough money to move to Hawaii, something that had been his dream for something along the lines of 6 or 7 years. It wasn't so much something he said while talking to me, it was more like the disapproving attitude he was putting forth. He quickly warmed up to the idea a bit once he saw how much I really wanted to move aboard and one day do some cruising. Heck he even offered to crew with me if I decided to sail out to Hawaii one day.

And honestly I've had my own self doubts as to whether or not this was a good idea. Hurricanes and lightning do sort of scare me, yet it's something I've always been able to take in stride. I've actually gone out to "play" soccer in a Cat. 1 hurricane, and I've seen lightning strike three channel markers in a row right as I was passing not 20 feet from them. I've gotten over my fears of these natural disasters for the most part, they still cause some unrest in me but I no longer fear them. I, like everyone else in life, take my chances, roll the dice, and hope for the best.

I'm determined to get aboard, yet except for myself it seems the only people that support my dream are the current liveaboards (such nice people as a whole) and the ones that have lived aboard at some point. Apparently to many, if not most, other people it's quite an alien thought to consider selling off most of what you own to move onto a boat, and live, as some people I've talked to have put it, like I was camping. Yet tons of them have this view of them sailing off the in the sunset, if only they could find the time to get on a boat.