My wife has already committed much of her blog to having our son (now 16 months old) on board a boat, but I wanted to provide a bit of a view from my perspective. Here is the first of a short series of posts (maybe 3 or 4) about having a baby on board.

First of all, I will say that A. does the bulk of the work with our son. As I am off at work each day, she ends up with him as her constant companion during the day. This is what we had planned before having kids – we wanted to raise our own children. Not have them, then pass them off to a daycare or nanny to raise as is done so often today. It was a choice we made. However wonderful it sounded back when we were just taking about having kids, we never imagined how much hard, mind numbing work it would entail. A. is a trooper – she is doing a great job with L. She has the patience to provide the attention he needs now as he learns new things each day.

When we first moved aboard L. was 9 months old. At that age, he was just beginning to change from a baby to a little boy. He, of course, had expressions, and responded to tickles and moving things and was crawling, but was not yet climbing. As he got comfortable on board he began to do some serious exploring. The boat was the perfect place for him as down in the main cabin he was able to move freely around without us having to worry about what he was getting into (he was always in sight). Once he started climbing, things changed a bit. He quickly discovered that he could climb up onto the settees and from there onto the fridge where if he stood up, he could look out the companionway. This quickly became a favorite perch of his – looking out into the cockpit. The whole climbing thing made A. and I a bit uneasy at first as we were always imagining that he would fall. But he quickly demonstrated his natural agility and balance and we were able to relax our minds about it. He did fall a couple of times, but other than the surprise of landing hard, he never really got hurt. The next stage of exploration was to actually crawl out the companionway into the cockpit. You should have seen the delight on his face as he proudly looked back at us after performing that little stunt. Thank goodness it was winter by then, and we had the plastic cover over the boat. We allowed him to rove around the cockpit and play down in the bottom with his toys. He loved the freedom and the change of scenery. Soon it was off exploring up the sides of the cabin toward the bow of the boat. We were not too happy about this as that area is, well, our storage area – and not baby proofed. So we ended that part of his roving by blocking off the way to the bow. How long that will last I don’t know – he is already showing signs of being able to crawl over the boxes we put in place. A week or two ago I put up a net to block off the doorway to the outside so that we can have the door open during the day without L. being able to get out. (It’s getting too hot in the canopy during the day – especially when the sun is shining.)

When we first moved aboard, we did not have any real place set aside for L. to sleep, so we kept him up in the v-berth with us. I can say that there are pro’s and con’s to having your baby sleep with you. First of all, it is really nice for the whole family to be together – cuddling up on a Saturday morning with the boy poking around your eyes or nose, while giggling away is just plain fun. I think it was nice for him too. He would often reach out in his sleep to make sure you were there – sometimes leaving his hand on your face. On the other hand, I don’t think any of us really slept that well. L. would often end up sideways so that he could cuddle face to face with mom while digging his heels into dad’s chest. At first I thought that was cute, but when he began to bruise me, it wasn’t so cute. He also tended to roam around in his sleep, crawling over top of one of us or moving down around our feet. I can’t believe how much he would move in a night. Plus in all his moving around, of course he would end up banging his head somewhere – which produced more tears and crying than real pain. L. would then go back to sleep in about 10 seconds leaving A. and I to stare at the ceiling and wonder what on earth we were going to do to get a full nights sleep. Eventually, we designed and built at leecloth system for the port settee that is now L’s bed. We rig it up in the evening and put him to bed there when we go to bed, then in the morning it all folds up under the settee cushion. Works perfectly – we all are sleeping much better.

There are generally only two categories between those who live on land and those who live on boats:

Live Aboard: one who lives aboard a boat.
Land Lubber: the term given to those who live on land by those who live aboard boats.

But another couple friends of ours introduced us to a third category. They had lived aboard their 30’ sailboat for, I think it was 7 years, with their twin daughters when they decided to buy a house and move back on land. Not wanting to be known as Land Lubbers, they introduced us to the term Clods. C.L.O.D. stands for Cruisers Living On Dirt … Clods – has a nice ring to it.

In keeping with this past weeks bathroom humor, I thought I might describe one of the other routines that one has to endure while living aboard especially in the winter in Canada: water and waste management.

If you want have water available at the sink and if you want to be able to use the John in the middle of the night, you will have to figure out a way of filling the water tank and emptying the holding tank. Once every 7 to 10 days I haul in about 20 gallons of water and haul out about 17 gallons of waste. I use the two wheel cart supplied by the marina and fill the water tank using two five gallon jugs. I fill them in the laundry room and drain them into the deck fill hole to fill the tank. Others at the marina here run out water hoses to fill their tanks, but I believe that they have much bigger tanks. Its Ok filling a 20 gallon tank by hand, I don’t want to imagine filling a 200 gallon tank.

The waste is another issue. We decided to keep our head working for the winter. Other live aboards here do not – they use the marina rest room exclusively. That means, in the middle of the night, in the middle of a snow storm, they have to troop out to the bathroom. Not for me. We use the head for liquid waste only so that limits some of the odours.

Our boat originally came with only a deck mounted pump out hole. This is no use in the winter as we do not have a pump to pump it out there, nor do we have any way of collecting it on deck even if we could. Instead, I installed a diverter switch and a hand pump on the side wall of the head that allows me to pump out the holding tank by hand into a jug. I then lug the jug up to the restroom in the marina and pour it down the toilets. It takes four trips to empty the tank completely (5 gallon jug loads at a time).
Here is a picture of my set up. As you can see, the diverter switch on the left allows me to switch between the deck pump out and the hand pump. The hand pump is attached to about a 4 foot hose that I put into the jug and then pump the handle. This type of pump will pump solid waste as well as liquid so, if we ever have need, we can use it for that as well. We add waste tank deodorizer stuff to the toilet every couple of days to keep away odours which also helps during the pump out. With fans running there is very little smell during the procedure although I usually still have A. and the boy go off for a walk while I take care of business. The first time I did this, I really wondered to myself about why I was in the situation where I had to haul crap by hand, but now it is just one of the things that has to be done to live the life we live. It doesn’t bother me a bit now.

The other day I was in the laundry room filling water bottles and got chatting with a lady who was there doing her laundry.

She said, “This morning there was a bad smell in the ladies washroom – smelled like sewer pipes. Is there a bad smell in the men’s restroom”?

Hahaha – oh me, oh my! My dear – there is always a bad smell in the men’s room – and it almost always smells like sewer! Hahaha.

Unless you plan to live aboard a monster yacht, one of the compromises that you will have to endure is public washrooms and showers. For the other half (who use the ladies room), I will give a little picture of the mens side of the action.

The mensroom is an interesting blend of private business in a public place. As the percentage of men to women at this marina is about 2 to 1 there always seems to be someone doing something in the mens. I can’t think of any other place where you could go to the washroom at 2:00am and end up chatting for half an hour with three other guys there for the same reason as you. And politics! Don’t get talking about politics or you’ll be there for hours. Voices will chime in from behind every closed door offering everything from opinions to expletives. World problems could be solved if people would just listen to the solutions presented there.

The showers are also a unique place. Our shower is an open room with four shower heads. At any given time you can have four men showering, chatting away while studiously scrubbing various parts and pieces. All this goes on while consciously concentrating on keeping any open eyes up above the neck of your shower partners. Come to think of it, there is a lot of eye contact in the mens room.

Men for the most part tend to be somewhat proud of the various events that occur in the stalls. Sometimes after a particularly spectacular occurrence you might hear a chuckle from a couple of stalls down. Some times you might even get cheered on. “Good one, man”! Men are such children.

And finally there is one old guy at this marina who always makes a scene of trying to find William. You can often hear him pull up to a stall, then talk to himself as he digs around, “Alright buddy, where are you? Come on out. ….. Ah, there you are – gotcha now!”

And yes, there is always a bad smell in the mens room – something like sewer pipes.

The panic is gone – today the boat is home.

Things have worked out so well that it is hard to remember why I even felt that way. Our plans for the future, while still quite general in nature, include all the advantages of having a home that is mobile. Little L. is having the time of his life. Ma and Pa are able to be with him 24/7 – what they do, he does. Because of our lowered expenses I am able to work much fewer than the average 40 hours a week. This means more family time and more time to pursue those things that really interest me. I don’t regret the decision to move aboard for one second. The freedom from following the path of “normal” has been worth it all.

Yves, a friend of mine who is also a bit of a dreamer and a wonderer, said it best at in the intro to his blog Bohemian Sailors:

“Somewhere, out there, exists the “book of life” written by society” which establishes timelines for a variety of life’s stages.

The following is a condensed chronological version of these conventional, predetermined stages:

1. after high school comes college or university (trade) studies,
2. then the hunt for that perfect companion starts,
3. establish a career,
4. marry that perfect companion,
5. buy a house and car,
6. have a couple of kids,
7. work longer hours,
8. buy a second car,
9. work longer hours,
10. buy a bigger house,
11. then work for the next 25 years in preparation of those last 10-15 years of retirement.”

This is what is considered normal? Can you say dangling carrots? We have broken out of the mould – we follow our own path. On this new path my boat is my home.

OK – that’s enough of that – this sort of ends the chronological part of this blog. From here on out I plan to be current – to record the things and thoughts that happen to us on a daily basis.

I’m off to tbe marina bathroom for a shower…

I remember laying in the v-berth that night with the weight of apparent impending doom on my chest. “What have I done” I asked myself over and over again. This is where I have brought my family? They trusted me, and this is what I do in return? These thoughts were equally offset however by the joy of knowing that I did not owe a cent to anyone. Debt free and loving it! (I found out how much I hated debt when I got rid of it.) Starting over, on a boat no less. Adventure and unknown – almost like being 20 again.

Hmmm – I wonder if this is what people call a mid-life crisis?

I don’t remember a lot of details from our first day on board. I seem to remember a lot of giddy, nervous, wild eyed laughter between A. and I. I think we spoke about how great it was to be free and clear of the house. How we were now able to do anything we wanted. We viewed our position as at a crossroads – we could go any direction we wanted. Which way to go?

But my most vivid memory of day 1 is the panic that I felt that night in the v-berth.

When removing a Band-Aid, there are two schools of thought. One is the slow peel method, maybe using a bit of warm water. While the other (rather violent method) is the mighty rip. There are pro’s and con’s to both. The Mighty Rip is painful and usually removes some skin and hair but thankfully the pain is over quickly. The Slow Peel is more gentle and usually leaves most of the skin still on your body. However, the period of pain is much longer. When trying to figure out how to tell our parents that we were moving aboard a sailboat (and taking their only grandchild with us) we elected to use the Slow Peel method.

Initially, we did not talk about what we were going to do. (Truthfully, we were not absolutely sure in our minds either.) All we talked about was getting the house ready for sale. We had a lot of work to do upgrading the house and making some repairs that had been long left undone. With all the painting and landscaping and hiring of workers we managed to avoid the question of where we were going to go. As the time came closer for the house to go on the market we told everyone that we were going to bunk out on the boat for a while till we figured out what we were going to do. At that point, I suppose that in my mind we were going to stay on the boat for longer, but A. had not yet committed to it.

Once the house went on the market we went full speed ahead in preparing the boat for us to live aboard. We did a lot of sanding, painting and varnishing. I installed a refrigeration system and A.’s mother made up new seat and berth cushions for us.

As time went on we began to allude to the thought that we might even stay the winter aboard if everything went well. We spoke of it as our little adventure and tried to paint it up as a cool thing to do but I am sure that people thought we were crazy.

Once we actually moved aboard, it was a done deal. Everyone just knew that we were going to stay here for a while. Today, we call the boat, home – and it is a home. After all, home is where the heart is, and well, my heart is here.

And that is how to break it to them gently – the Slow Peel Method.

Next: 1st day in our new home.

Launching is a curious thing. On one hand you have the anticipation of another great sailing season. After all, once the boat is in the water – summer is practically here, right? On the other hand, you have the worry that something might go wrong. Maybe the engine won’t start. Or maybe those new thru hulls you installed are going to leak. Oh man, did I remember to close that one in the head?!? You know, that sort of thing.

Summer ’05 launch went well. They dropped the boat into the water and after I quickly jumped aboard to check for leaks I was sent down the dock to install the mast. The crane made short work of it, and in about half an hour I was in my home slip – freezing my butt off, but oh so happy. Summer’s here – yaaaah! After celebrating the arrival of summer I jumped into my truck to try to warm up. I guess summer is a little cold this time of year.

At this point, we had not seriously discussed moving aboard. My wife had taken her maternity leave and did not expect to go back to work. I had started my own appliance repair business less than a year earlier and while I was doing well, I did not feel like putting in the long extra hours needed to makeup the money that we would surely need when the maternity ran out. Plus I found spending time with my son and wife rewarding in that I did not miss anything and my wife never really felt alone in raising him. (Mind you, I have no illusions – she did all the hard work.) We had a little brick house in Toronto proper that we had bought some 13 years previously. We did not have the mortgage paid off, but had taken a good piece out of it. Plus the house had grown in value somewhat. What to do? Do we move away – to some area of the country where living was cheaper? Would A. have to go back to work and little L. go to daycare? (In my mind, this was never an option.) Should we sell the house and just find a cheap apartment somewhere? None of these sounded good to us.

Then there was “the plan” (see the post titled Where to Start … Some History.) Were we still going to sail around the world? We had the boat… Well, if one were going to sail for a great distance and for a great period of time, it would be good thing to do a bit of a trial run, right? Slowly, the idea began to filter into our minds that we could solve our living arrangement problems and continue the sail around the world dream all in one move. And that is how we got to the point of thinking that this might be the perfect time to try out living on a sailboat.

To be perfectly honest with you, I was shocked that A. was willing to give it a whirl. With all she was going through – giving birth and being on call 24/7 to feed the boy, I never dreamt that she would seriously consider it. But consider she did and shock me she did. I guess I should not have been too surprised. In our time together, A. had always had an adventurous side. She more than I sometimes. I tend to become a bit of a homebody although once I get going I always end up asking myself, “what took so long”?

So that ended up being the plan. Sell the house, pay off all our debts and move aboard the sailboat. A mighty plan it was!

Up next: Break it to me gently – telling our parents.

I had covered the boat for winter using a big blue Canadian Tire tarp supported by electrical conduit pipes bent over into upside down “U” shapes. I used four of these hoops which in hind sight were not enough. I should have used maybe five or six.

I checked up on the boat on a regular basis, and while I found sometimes a knot had come loose and a corner was flapping, it generally did the job of keeping the snow off the boat. As winter wore on and less snow fell, I checked in on her less often. Big mistake! What happened was, we had a big wet heavy dump of snow – the kind that feels like you are shoveling cement – followed by a day long heavy rain. Then everything froze again. I did not think too much of it. My sister was visiting from out of town so we thought we would show her the boat. As we pulled up, something did not look right. The back end of the tarp, (the part covering the cockpit) was all caved in and one of the conduit poles was broken and poking through the tarp at a strange angle. I climbed the ladder up to the cockpit with a sense of dread. Sure enough, the tarp had caved in where the poles had broken under the heavy weight of the snow. Then the cockpit filled with water and froze. I had a solid block of ice in the cockpit about 2 1/2 feet wide by 5 feet long by about a foot deep. That was some ice cube! The tarp was frozen into the middle of “The Cube”, so I could not even get into the boat. We went at “The Cube” with hammers and screwdrivers breaking it into manageable hunks that we could throw over the side of the boat.

Finally, we got most of it out and were able to lift the tarp and actually get into the boat. I climbed down inside and lifted the floorboard out of habit just to check for water in the bilge. NO WAY!! The bilge was full up ice almost to the top of the batteries. (Here after to be called Cube 2.) “Cube 2” was not slushy ice either – another solid block. I felt sick to my stomach. It took me two days of chipping, adding hot water then sponging out and using a heater to get “C2” out and to see the bottom of the bilge again. What a job! I guess what happened was, when “The Cube” invaded the cockpit, water was able to flow into the boat around the cockpit seats thus providing the raw material for “C2.”

With “The Cube” and “C2” finally out of my life I got around to looking at the rest of the boat. Looking at the hull I noticed that the antifouling paint had come loose on both sides of the hull in about the same place where “C2” took up residence in the bilge. I guess there had been some expansion after all. I also noticed a crack forming in a strange place further up the keel toward the bow. As I chipped away at this new crack I found that I was actually peeling away what looked to be a layer of fiberglass wrapped around the bottom of the keel running some 6 or 7 feet long. I decided to have the hull checked out by a professional who I hoped would give me some advise on this crack as well.

I met a fiberglass/hull man the next evening at the boat to check it out. He was not worried at all about where the hull had expanded by the bilge, however the crack in the keel did not look good to him. He went at the crack with a 2″ chisel and hammer and in about 30 second had peeled off a huge layer of fiberglass that had been stuck to the bottom of the keel by a previous owner (PO). I guess this layer was part of an old repair that had been done rather poorly in the past. The glass had been laid up right over the gel coat which I understand is a no no. He advised me to peel all the old repair off, then grind the gel coat off and then he would come back and do a proper repair.

I did the required peeling and very quickly found out why he had me do the grinding. I still sometimes close my eyes at night and taste the fiberglass dust and feel the itch and burn of it picking and poking its way into my skin. After cleaning the old area up we noticed that the hull was dripping from a couple of cracks that we had exposed when grinding. No problem my repair guy said, just drill a couple of holes up into the keel and let the water drain out. So drill I did – except that did not go as planned either. No sooner had I drilled a couple of holes but chunks of fiberglass resin started falling out of the area around the cracks and holes. When all was said and done and the hull had stopped blowing chunks, there was about a 5 inch hole in the bottom of the keel right to the imbedded iron ballast.

To me this was a rather disconcerting sight, but to a hull repair guy its just another day on the job. I watched in amazement as he quickly made up a patch that he plugged into the hole. Then after waiting a couple of hours for it to dry he laid up a new repair and smoothed and faired it into the old gel coat. When he was done, you could not tell where he had worked. It looked and felt perfect to me. All this was done in about 4 hours. I have a new respect for guys who work with fiberglass – mine turned out to be a real artisan.

I guess that cube 1 and 2 were in a way good things as they exposed a problem that I had not been aware of before. Now, I am confident the hull is in good shape and in a proper state of repair.

Next time: 3… 2… 1… Launch!!

After a season of fun in the sun, the time came for us to pull the boat out of the water for winter storage. It’s quite a sight.

First the mast was removed. This is done with a crane – the top half of the mast is grabbed with a rope and the whole thing is lifted off the boat. Then dropped down and wrapped up for winter storage on a rack.

Then the boat is moved into a slip where a lift with two slings is brought over top of the boat. The two slings are brought under the boat, one on the front part of the boat, one on the rear part of the boat and then the slings are hoisted up lifting the boat out of the water. The boat is then put on its stand and the stand with boat and all is moved into its final position for the winter. Sigh – a sad sight.

Here’s a bit of advice for those of you who have great dreams of getting large amounts of work done on a boat over the winter. Don’t make too large a list! (“The best-laid plans of mice and men often go awry.”) I had grand plans of refinishing everything, replacing just about everything, installing this and that – the list was pages long. Well I managed to get the essentials done – the stuff that if I didn’t get them done … the boat: she no float. I finished replacing all the thru-hulls, replaced the old knot meter and depth sounder and finally finished with a rather large and unexpected hull repair. More on that next time.

We finished with painting new waterline stripes and a fresh coat of bottom coat paint. Bottom coat is interesting stuff. It goes on real thick and heavy but does the job of keeping marine growth off the bottom of the boat. I guess that what ever is in the paint is a poison of some sort that does not allow stuff to grow on it. It even stops zebra mussels from growing on the boat. Anyway, she does look fine all cleaned up and shiny, just waiting to plunge back into the waves.

Up next – Unexpected hull repair.