“Home is Where the Heart (and the boat) is” is the title of an article in Good Old Boat November/December edition.

They are right.

As I sat out in the cockpit this evening thinking about how good life was, I thought about how I had everything I needed and that I was happy to be exactly where I was. Down below my wife was working on getting Christmas cards ready to mail out; out in the cockpit with me was the boy, just glad that dad was home from work. Looking out through the plastic I could see the sun beginning to set, the water rippling and other boats rocking in the slight breeze. I had everything that anyone could desire in a ‘home’ to be happy. The only difference was that my ‘home’ was floating. This evening we had order in Thai food, we rented and watched a DVD movie, messed around on the internet, read a magazine and now I’m getting ready to hit the sack. All this on a boat – really, what is different from living on dirt? If you are thinking about living aboard a boat – just do it! In many ways your life will not change and always remember, “home is where your heart is.”

Here are some more photo’s from our trip to Ireland. Enjoy…

Wow – its hard to believe that it has been 3 months since my last update here. You know what they say – time flies when you’re having fun. We’ve been having some fun!

Since my last post we’ve moved to our winter marina, gone to Manitoba to pick up our new camper trailer, toured the southwest of Ireland and celebrated the boys 2nd birthday (the terrible twos are here.)

I will get some pics up in the next week or so of the above, but for now here is a taste of our Ireland trip…

I finally got around to installing jacklines on the boat. I had purchased the hardware a month ago and had got the actual lines made up last winter. All I had to do was drill some holes and bed the hardware – about 1 hour worth of work that I’ve put off for far too long. As you can see I mounted some real heavy ‘D’ rings to the side of the cabin right in front of the cockpit combing. Then ran the lines to my anchor cleats. With this set up I can reach around to clip on with out leaving the safety of the cockpit. Also they are easily removed when not needed. For now I will leave them on and with give the boy a try on them with a harness. That way I can work on deck and not worry about him going over. See my post Keeping the Boy on the Boat for more info on how we keep our 20 month old safe on board.

The clouds prepare for battle
In the dark and brooding silence.
Bruised and sullen stormclouds
Have the light of day obscured.
Looming low and ominous
In twilight premature
Thunderheads are rumbling
In a distant overture…

– Jacob’s Ladder

The problem with having an air conditioned boat is that when the weather is hot, you don’t want to do anything. Today, it is unbearably hot outside – over 40 deg C. with the humidex scale. I’ve not left the boat nor have I done anything but eat, sleep and read books. Oh yes, I watched a bit of television too. I feel bad – lazy really, but I blame it on the A/C unit. Who wants to be all hot and bothered when you can be cool as a cat and all relaxed? I suppose that some time soon, I ought to run off for a shower, if nothing else than for the sake of those living with me. But after that? I have no plans – maybe a bit of reading, some eating and then some more sleep. Ah, what a day!

We have some new neighbours here on our dock. They are noisy and aggressive but at lot of fun to watch. They are a family of barn swallows that have taken up residence under the bow of a powerboat across the dock from us. I guess this is what happens if you park your boat and walk away. I’ve haven’t seen anyone on this boat the whole summer so I guess it was the perfect place for Mr. and Mrs. Swallow to set up shop. Walking down the dock is now an interesting experience as Mrs. does not want anyone coming near her babies. So she dives and we duck – I think it is a bit of a game for her to see how close she can get. I tried to snap a proper picture but could not stop flinching when she came at me so this is the best I could get.

Is this the Simple Life or is this just simply life? A question I’ve been asking myself lately. The fact that we got rid of so much ‘stuff’ when we moved from the house to aboard the boat would seem to indicate that we have simplified our lives. But have we really? Somehow, I think we’ve managed to bring all the things that clutter up our minds and lives and packed them into a wee little boat.

For instance, the internet connection has been horrible here for about a week now. I called twice before getting a message back that they are working on it. What does that mean? Simplified? I don’t think so.

The fridge needs defrosting. If we had simplified our lives we would not have a fridge. But who can live without a fridge? Cold drinks and well kept food seems to be sort of essential to me. But does having a fridge that needs to be defrosted every month or so during the summer mean that our lives have been simplified? Not in my books.

Light bulb burnt out in the v-berth, broken hinge on a cockpit locker, a bit of soft floor in the cockpit sole that needs repair … and on, and on, and on.

Life is no simpler – the actual jobs have changed but the work is the same. Would I give up the boat and go back to the house? Not on your life – I love it here – life is so much simpler…

(I know that does not make sense, but that is the way it really is here aboard H.M.S. Strathgowan.)

We now have A/C on our Alberg. I got to feeling guilty about leaving my wife and child to stifle at the boat while I went off to work in the luxury of my air conditioned service van. So, to resolve my internal dissonance, I picked up a nice little 5200 btu window rattler and installed it in the companionway. I had been trying to figure out how to install a marine A/C unit on our little boat but was having problems getting by the cost of them much less where to install one. KISS (keep it simple stupid) came into play and for $150.00 cdn we are way cool. In fact, during the day A. has had to turn it down because it was getting too cold for comfort. I set it up on a rolling platform so that when we want to leave through the companionway, we simply roll it to the side and out we go. It will get left on the dock when we go sailing unless we are going for the night in which case I will put it in the lazarette for storage. I figure that for something that I might use for 4 or 5 weeks a year, I could not justify the expense of a permanently mounted unit plus the loss of space which on our boat is a precious commodity.

As we move through the stresses of life – A. and I have developed a little saying that we say to each other when we see the other getting too stressed about something. It is, “relax, we live on a boat.” This simple reminder has become a bit of a mantra for me especially when customers are pounding away or when something is stressing me to point of it boiling over into our family life. Relax, you live on a boat – just a reminder that we are living something that other people often dream of but rarely get to the point of actually doing. To us, it is easy to forget that we live in an unusual circumstance, one that others find adventurous and exciting but to us is just life – you know – normal. There are others that we look to for our dreams and wonder at their adventures and exciting lives. For instance this young couple who are currently sailing around the world on their catamaran. Now they are living an exciting and adventurous life! However, we too are living our own little adventure, so just to remind myself – one more time – “relax, we live on a boat!”