The Boat as RV

Skol!

Anne here.  

Jim has been the primary blog writer so far (with a little editing support now and then), but many people have asked “what is it like to live on the boat?” so I thought I would write a bit to share our daily lifestyle on the water.

Our "salon"

Travelling and living on a boat is rather like travelling in an RV – in our case, a very small RV. Thirty-five feet long including bow and stern overhangs, and just over eleven feet wide at maximum beam. Call it two hundred square feet if you include bunk areas. We have a few mod cons that make life a bit more ‘luxurious’ – hot (six gallons when the engine has been running or we are plugged into dock power) and cold running water, a forced-air furnace to warm up the place in the morning or on really rainy cold days, an oven for baking bread and making pizza, and a VERY small freezer in the refrigerator compartment that allows us to have ice cubes for happy hour drinks and keep some meat frozen. 

The "forward stateroom"

We have a small bathroom (the Head), a small bedroom for 2 (the V-berth in the forward part of the boat) a small kitchen (the Galley), and a small living/dining area (the Salon). We also have a back deck with a propane BBQ (the Cockpit at the Stern or blunt end of the boat) and a front porch (the Bow or pointy end of the boat) as well as a ‘garage’ (the Quarterberth which is the sleeping area for one tucked under one of the cockpit seats).  

The front end of the ‘garage’ also doubles as the seat for the desk which is the navigation station or the Nav Table. Just like travelling in an RV, the amount of travel and the weather decides which area of the boat we spend the most time in on any given day. Unlike an RV, we have to stand out in the weather to drive.

The morning navigatorium + tea

Everything on board has to be compact, have dual or triple purposes if possible, and be either able to get wet or be carefully stowed in plastic bags to avoid getting  wet.  Life on a boat is all about doing more with a lot less and managing the level of moisture in the air (high humidity or torrential rains) as well as the water that might get in while underway including spray from travelling in 3 to 6+ foot waves or from small leaks that have sprung up from some unknown place in the body of the boat.

Storage is a creative adventure and it surprises me on every trip just how much we can store in this wee space we have called home for the last 2 months. There is a treasure trove of necessities and yummy things hidden behind every cushion, in every cupboard and drawer, and under every panel. Even the oven doubles as a place to keep pans for baking as well as the really fragile food such as taco chips.

What do we do all day, you ask?

It depends on whether we are travelling to a new anchorage or sitting at anchor for a layover day, whether it is sunny and warm or foggy and/or pouring. Mornings usually find us drinking copious amounts of tea while listening to the weather reports on the VHF radio and reading the various cruising guides to discover all the interesting places to see in the surrounding area. This is generally our time for catching up on blog writing (usually Jim’s job), entering info into the boat log (usually Anne’s job), and sorting through pictures from the previous day. If we are staying for the day and the weather is good, we may put the small motor on the dinghy and go for an exploratory tour or each of us will get some exercise paddling - Jim in the dinghy and me in the kayak. The dinghy is a better platform for Jim to carry his big camera bag and get in for those close-up pictures of the shoreline. Some days we adventure further going for a hike to the beaches or up to the waterfalls or hot springs for a swim. 

Some mornings are quite bleak

Some days we need to ‘get up and go’ right away to take advantage of the tides, or the calm morning winds and seas so then we wash up, eat breakfast and drink copious amounts of tea while travelling.  If the seas are choppy this can take some doing as you never quite know where your foot is going to land and which side of the boat you are going to be thrown against  while down below. That being said, it is amazing what you can cook while hanging on to the handholds with one hand! 

Dinner by candlelight is just a lovely way to end a day of travel on the water, especially when you are in a snug anchorage and have lots of fresh ingredients and a good bottle of wine after a successful shopping run.

Cooking onboard can be really satisfying using whatever you have at hand to create great meals. We have faked our way through such things as chorizo pasta, pork tenderloin with apples and maple syrup sauce, chicken stuffed with Brie, ‘anything goes except seaweed’ salads and, of course, the boating favourite breakfast, bacon and eggs.

 We could not possibly survive without our egg poaching pan and our BBQ. You can do an unbelievable amount of cooking on the BBQ - we even make toast on the BBQ, since we have no electric toaster onboard. Toast on a boat is a big treat!
We also carry a pancake pan, a cheese grinder, meat thermometer and many other "useless gadgets".

Having a 3 burner propane stove and oven go a long way to keeping the cooking entertaining as do a few cookbooks specially written for the boating life. It's nice to have someone else’s cooking/provisioning experiences to get the creative juices flowing. 

And, what about washing up, especially in terms of having a shower? Yes, we do have a shower of sorts in the head, a compartment which has just barely enough standing head room for Jim and just enough room to turn around in if you are careful to keep your elbows close to your sides. There is a handheld showerhead as part of the faucet for the sink so it can be used for really bad hair days - after 4 days of not being able to have a head shower due to travel, inclement weather or because we are watching out for the ever-decreasing level of our fresh water as it all comes from the same 2 small tanks. We are not set up with a water-maker which turns sea water into potable water so after about 6 days of careful water use we start to feel a bit jumpy about how much we may have left. 

Solar showers on deck getting cold

The other option is to hang the solar shower into the bathroom compartment through the overhead hatch.  It can get the head a bit wet with water spraying all over but is truly a welcome treat. Full on body washing is usually left for the cockpit showers or the luxury of a real shower stall at a marina so sponge bathing is an expectation for boatlife.

Provisioning and laundry as well as loading up on water, and occasionally fuel, are the necessities that usually make us check into a marina which happens about every 10 days or so. 

Great fresh seafood in Ucluelet, definitely OK to eat

 Provisioning is an adventure in its own right. Making a list to shop in the tiny marina general stores on the west coast is almost a waste of time as you just have to take what is there and what is freshest that day. It really makes you work hard at menu planning which is actually one of the creative aspects of boating that we both love. Checking the expiry dates on goods in these stores is a must as sometimes the products have not moved off the shelves for years – really! In some of the more remote places we just accept that some things are out of date and are probably OK to eat.

The fixin's

The finished loaf

Changing the macerator...notice the fan

There is lots of time for doing small cleaning chores, considering what to prepare for meals with whatever food is handy or needs to be eaten first, and fixing/repairing whatever might need attention. Running the engine to charge the batteries is a good time to make bread, since there are many warm places to help it rise, and there is lots of hot water for washing-up afterwards. 


























Repairs often call for an all-out attack on the interior, up-ending and uncovering many surfaces and having tools laid out everywhere, in order to get at the job which is usually in the bottom of the boat or in some other inaccessible place which requires lying sideways and upside-down and making your body into a pretzel. 

Checking the batteries

Jobs such as checking the batteries or changing out the macerator pump, the electric thing which grinds up the stuff in the holding tank (connected to the toilet) as it is pumped out, required a lot of pulling out of everything in one space and then finding a space for it all while the work in in process, not so easy in such a small place to begin with, especially since tools are stashed all over the boat. We are very fortunate that Jim is so handy with all manner of repairs and has a somewhat special aptitude for all things plumbing and electrical!! Being out in the middle of nowhere there is frequently no one else to rely on but ourselves.

Writing in the log

When it is time to relax we enjoy sitting in our ‘back deck’ reading or just looking around at the wildlife and landscape of the new backyard we have every time we move to a different anchorage.
I also love to spend time sitting on the ‘front porch’ in my hammock chair, a most wonderful Christmas present from Jim years ago.  

 There is nothing quite like enjoying happy hour in the sun in a quiet anchorage or having a sunny solar shower in the cockpit – especially if there are no other boats around! And for those rainy days which were blessedly infrequent this summer, there is the tarp cover that we have rigged to go over the cockpit so we can sit out when the weather is really wet. We also have a "storm tarp", good when it's windy, that we use for collecting rain water to support our small supply of potable water onboard.

Living on a boat is on one hand so much easier than on land and on the other hand so much trickier. There is nowhere to go if you have a bit of a falling out so learning to talk it out is a must. There is no one to help you unless you are close to civilization so you have to know how to manage all the systems and things that Mother Nature throws at you by yourselves. But there are fewer things to go wrong and to look after so it all seems to balance out.  Living on a boat is all about self-reliance, creative problem-solving and being able to take it as it comes. It is a most wonderful way to be one with your surroundings and to have time to get to know yourself in ways that are not possible in a land-based workday world. It is always an adventure, a challenge and an experience that is unforgettable.