Living Aboard Comes to a Head

    It has recently come to my attention that people (generally non-sailors) Don't entirely
understand what it means to live aboard a boat while cruising long distances. I shall attempt
to enlighten on the realities of my particular brand of cruising. As I'm going long distances
on little money I am afforded fewer conveniences than many other cruisers choose to enjoy.
    For starters, everything you bring aboard must be carried back off the boat when it's done.
Everything. Groceries? Yep, the wrappers get trashed, the rinds get trashed, the rest,
digested, and then guess what. It all has to go somewhere, you can't just dump it into the bay
you're anchored in, or the river you're motoring down. Some boats have holding tanks which you
can pump out every so often like an RV. I don't have that. I have a porta-potty. So when it
gets full you have to find a bathroom, dismantle the thing from it's mount on the boat, carry
the tank in feeling awfully self-conscious about the treasure you hold in your hand, and you
get to dump it into the toilet. All five gallons of putrid stank gets to flood past you as you
pour it in, and you hope to God it doesn't splash.
    I don't have much money, less than I thought even. So I don't get to stay in marinas very
often. $1.50 per foot of boat length, per day has been pretty standard for a slip going down
the Intracoastal. Ritzier places get more, I've seen up to $3/foot. For my little 25 foot
Cassandra that's on average $38 a night or $1140 for a month of travel. I obviously don't have
that kind of money. Because of this I anchor out. You study your chart to find a little section
of water, between 8 and 15 feet deep with land on whatever side the wind is/will be coming from
to block the waves. When you get there you verify that it actually is the size and depths the
chart said it would be, let out your anchor with the right ratio of rope to water depth, and
get to enjoy the results of your chart ponderings, hoping you chose well when the tide goes out
and the wind pipes up.
    If you need to stop at the grocery store, or grab some propane for your stove (no microwave
or oven folks) or anything on land that little anchorage needs to be near those amenities and
have someplace you can tie up or beach your dinghy. So, you get into your little, homemade 8
foot water-taxi, row yourself over to that beach and walk wherever you need to go. If you're
lucky you're in a city with buses, and if you're really lucky they had a free dock you could
tie up to for a night instead of anchoring. These are few and far between. Once you buy your
70pounds (10gal) of gasoline and two bags of canned goods (no refrigeration either, can't
afford to install it or the power generation to keep it running if there was even enough room
for it.)
    Then, once you've rowed all this out to the boat it has to find somewhere to live. Dried
beans under your bed (which is also the couch) shelf-stable milk, for a treat, is kept in the
wonky shaped cubby in the counter. Cans fill the space under the steps down into the cabin, and
pancake mix and powdered milk keep the beans company. Everything winds up everywhere. Fresh
foods need to be stored where they can breath so they don't go mouldy. Right now that means in
wicker baskets in the way on the counter. All water comes on in gallon jugs filled in a
bathroom or a potable water spigot somewhere. In the us this is free. In the Bahamas water is 
$.25 per gallon.
    Then there's hygiene. Since you have to bring all your water on by the gallon there is
little you would want to use for washing. Seawater is ok for dishes, but they need a freshwater
rinse so they don't stay wet and the pots don't rust. Salt holds dampness in just about
anywhere it goes, so if you go for a swim to get clean you'll want to rinse yourself too.
Mostly I take sponge baths, admittedly not often enough. Water is precious, and the weather has
been cold, not much fun to stand naked in what is essentially your living room, shivering as
you sponge away days worth of grime. Real showers only happen at marinas, fitness clubs, or
occasionally the sympathetic friend's house. Laundry likewise happens when you bite the bullet
and pull into a marina. Otherwise you head to a laundromat like everyone else, except your
clothes get to make a dinghy ride with you both ways; the clothes in the machine beside yours
are always jealous.
    Your bed is 2" of thirty year old foam topped with a summer sleeping bag and whatever
blankets you might need to keep some shivering. Did I mention there's only 5'8" of headroom and
I'm 6'2? No? Well, just throw some stiff spine into the calculations for living comfort while
you're at it.
    That's most of the day-to day that I deal with. Sailing is still sailing, motoring to make
miles is still just motoring. It takes a special kind of person to sail with nothing. 'Special'
sounds a bit like it means 'not too bright' sometimes, but I still enjoy it.

Update 01/21/2014

    Okay, so, here's the deal: Jackson, my 35 year old outboard given to me by my grandfather, has died. The splines on the driveshaft and the crank have both been stripped out. I have a new lower unit and crank coming in the mail, hopefully tomorrow. In the meantime I bought a '91 Nissan 8hp outboard which I, so far, love. It's quiet, beautifully maintained, lighter, and more powerful. So I'm stuck with the dilemma of which to keep when (if) I get Jackson the mighty Mercury up and running again.
    My sister, Christine, has joined me for at least the next month of this adventure. She and my mother came down from Baldwinsville for a few days and rented a car so we could run whatever errands there were, including the picking up of my new Nissan. Mom has since gone off to visit My brother in Atlanta and my grandfather, leaving Christine and myself here in Jacksonville killing time waiting for engine parts.
   Yesterday started off on a rather interesting note. After having both slept in late we were treated to the continued dronings of Sports-bikes revving their engines not far off in the city. Then there was the rap music, and marching bands. You may have figured out what it was by now, the MLK Day parade. So we abandoned the boat for the afternoon and went to the movies and saw Frozen and Hunger games: Catching Fire. We already had watched The Hobbit: Desolation of Smaug when Mom was here. Today we're killing time at the library since the wind has kicked up a rather uncomfortable chop through the marina where we're staying. It's looking like maybe Thursday or Friday we'll head out.
    'Tine has already got me eating fresh fruits and veggies and tonight is going to be a stew night. Yay for culinary ambition! Not sure what else to update y'all on. I suspect we'll be in Lake worth in about ten days and then make the hop to the Bahamas when we get a good weather window.

Jacksonville claims one of it's own.

    Bad news. Jackson, my '78 Mercury 7.5hp outboard bit it hard just 21 miles out of Jacksonville. I was just motoring out of my anchorage beside the Kingsley Plantation (which I toured in semi-period dress, just for fun) when suddenly the rpms shot up and I lost all propulsion. I was able to re-anchor safely and tore into the outboard. It seems the splines of the driveshaft where it goes into the powerhead stripped out leaving me with nothing. I called a towboat and managed to get a tow under my Boat US coverage, getting pulled along at up to 9kts into the free docks in Jacksonville. So now I have 72 hours to affect some sort of repair or get a new motor before they theoretically kick me off the docks. We'll see. I have a lower unit from a '75 Merc. 9.8 on order from ebay. If I'm correct about the models it will fit my engine. If I'm not, well, let's just hope I'm right. Meanwhile I'll be trying to find a machine shop or something which might be able to re-machine the splines for me. That might take too long though, as they'll have to weld new material in, machine the grooves, and then re-harden the shaft.
     And that's all assuming the socket on the crankshaft is still good. I have to tear into that tomorrow, maybe tonight though it's getting late. I'll try to keep everything updated. If I can't do full blog posts check the twiter feed in the right column.  ==>

And a Happy New Year.

Very little has happened since Christmas, at least as far as distance traveled is concerned. I'm less than twenty miles past Savannah. New Years was spent with my friends Dan and Hannah whom I met last summer on the West Marine store build in New Hampshire. They'll be getting married in March and I wish them all happiness. I'd like to join them for the event, but I have no idea if I'll even be in the country yet. The following day was rainy and cold, so Cassie and I stayed tied up to the dock in Savannah. I spent money I shouldn't have on touristy things, and then had dinner at an Irish pub; Irish stew and shepherd's pie. It was delicious, and there was a live Celtic band which I sat and watched for at least three hours. That's another highlight of the trip so far. The next day Cassie and I ran for cover in a little river past the next bridge out of Savannah so we'd be protected for the gale force winds forecast for that evening. Nature did not disappoint, nor did my trusty Rocna anchor. We had gusts up to 40mph and sustained winds of at least 30 but didn't drag at all. Yesterday I spend the day huddled in my sleeping bags waiting out the freezing winds on the tail end of that arctic cold-front and reading the collected works of Sherlock Holmes. Today we jumped to the next river so I could stock up on food and fuel so we can make some miles tomorrow. Tomorrow it's supposed to be in the sixties, and then drop back into high fourties the next day, so I may be hunkered down for a few more nights again. We'll see what comes of it all.