As you can imagine, our first few weeks of living on a boat was full of fun surprises!
Boat-life Bliss:
- Having dinner on the top deck (waterfront dining!) while taking in the calm and quiet back-bay scenery
- Watching dolphins play in our “backyard” and the birds catch fish while balancing on dock lines
- Strolling to the beach to watch the sunset, every night
- Scouring Craigslist for cheap bikes and finding the perfect beach cruisers
- Realizing we live on an island! I work on one island and live on another… what is this life?!
- Watching the cats lounge in the window, basking in the sunlight
- Meeting our dock neighbors and receiving a warm welcome to the boating community
- Being invited to our first “dock party,” and having interesting (and insightful!) convos with other boaters
And then there were a few not so fun surprises….
Boat-life Blues:
- Hearing the Dock Master complain we poke out too far from the slip and that we need to remove our SeaLift
- Having a Hurricane sweep through the state, bringing heavy winds and some rain
- Learning which windows leaked, and waking up to water dripping on my face
- Having a breaker trip and going without power for one night
- Realizing the breaker tripped because of a leaking pipe behind the wall
- Going without water for a night or two as we removed the engine room wall and replaced the leaking pipes
- Seeing an immediate need for good working Air Conditioners, while troubleshooting why ours didn’t work so well
- Learning that our bikes needed the all-important yellow name tags so they wouldn’t be removed from the bike rack (thanks Kim & Randy!)
- Being told by the divers that we needed new bottom paint, before they had even looked at the bottom of the boat 🙄
I’m sure there are more “fun” experiences I’m leaving out, but you get the gist!
There you have it, proof that boat-life isn’t always as luxurious as they make it out to be. But even still, both of us thoroughly enjoyed our first few weeks adjusting to the live aboard lifestyle.
Leash-Training Cats
The cats did surprisingly well, that is once they got over the creepy and unusual noises the boat makes when its water, AC, and septic systems are in use. At first we were afraid to let them outside in fear they’d take off running on the dock or fall in the water. So, we decided to try and leash-train them.
Yeeeeah, have you ever tried to leash-train a grown cat? It involves lots of treats and coaxing to get them to move five steps without falling over in a dramatic fashion (Turbo) or low crawling with an interesting head-bob motion (Ryback).
Needless to say, we found they do much better without the leash. Turbo hasn’t tried to jump off onto the dock, although he does sit awfully close to the edge of the boat. I think he’ll be the first to fall in the water.
Ryback, the explorer cat, is a way more interested in the dock and checking out the neighboring boats than hanging out on ours. Therefore, we have to keep an eye on him and not let him out at dusk, which we’ve determined is prime exploration time.
…live and learn. Live and learn.
1 comment
Comment by mhmoore
mhmoore December 9, 2017 at 12:11 pm
You need a WRECKED ( Water Rescue Emergency Cat and Kitten Extraction Device ) courtesy of Our Odyssey (http://ourodyssey.blogspot.com/2015/01/splash-splash.html)