Ralph goes hiking

Ralph is a knitted octopus who was given to me as a boat warming gift. Since I am a huge fan of all things octopus I take him everywhere.

Making plans for the boat. I am planning on doing two nights of Xmas Ship Parade watching with close friends. I am thinking of projects. I have a few friends who are offering to help with the boat in return for sailing on it with me. I would like to take a few people out for overnight trips. It goes on and on. Looking foreword just to the living on it part.

Boat thoughts.

I put the money down on the boat last Wednesday night. I am super excited. It feels right to buy Cathleen back and own it. Even if I sell it I have done the right thing.

Transition

I lay here thinking about the changes that are coming in my life. I am moving out of Paul's boat to move into a hotel for a month and when I get back to Portland I will be moving onto my little boat. The significance of the changes it weighing on my brain. My possessions will be shrunk down to a tiny boat size and I will have to work to maintain the boat so it can be sailed. The guys at work all think I will fail to do this. They all think I will never take it sailing because living an it will get in the way. My goal is to prove them wrong. My goal is to go sailing when ever I like. I want to take my friends out. I want to share sailing with them.
I am constantly thinking of things I can get rid of. I have lots of things I should get rid of but don't want to. So far I have found a home for my bed and my mixer. Now I just need to find other things to get rid of. Each item needs to be looked at and deliberated over. The answer needs to be get rid of it more often then not. I think that things like baseball cards will be hard. They are worth money in theory but in practice they don't bring the price you want for them. My books I want to keep but shouldn't keep them all. I have spent a lot of time collecting them. Some of them I should just get rid of but some I would sooner part with limbs. This is going to be an interesting time.

Reacquainted

I went to visit her last night. It wasn't all poetic or anything just deeply emotional. I missed that boat. I like its lines. I like the layout, the way thing are organized and thought out. I have a deep emotional reaction to this boat. The boat stirs emotions in me. I don't fully know how to verbalize my feelings but they are powerful.

Sitting there thinking about weather or not I could live on the boat all I could think is "How could I live with out the boat?"

When buying a boat I should be rational, I am not. I have done a lot of rational thought about the subject but I am not rational anymore.

D

I am here

I am here in Portland again. Having moved to Colorado for a relationship, now I am back. The relationship did not work out. Yet it was great in so many ways.

I learned a lot about myself and what it is like to be a father to three kids. I learned I had lots of love and energy to put into the kids. I also learned I had lots to learn about being a parent.

I am here in Portland living on a boat. I have been living on a co-workers boat to see if I liked it and could live on a boat. Ardis is the name of the wooden twenty eight foot converted Alaskan Salmon Troller that I am living on. It has an aft stateroom with a head, though I do not use the head because I do not have any way of emptying it. It has a well set up galley with an ice box, a two burner propane stove, a deep single sink and a good amount of counter space. And a small salon The galley even has a few drawers and cabinets. So far I have liked it and do not miss the space that a house provides. The main thing I yearn for in my own space to put my stuff in. I am sharing the boat with his stuff and that makes it all hard. I love the water, and sleeping on it makes me happy. I have decided to buy my own boat and live on it.

Living on a boat will bring lots of changes to my life. I will have to rid myself of lots of stuff. I have already begun by loaning my mixer to a friend and posting my Atari on Craigslist. I haven't had any offers on the Atari yet so it may have to go on ebay. I will keep a lot of my stuff in a storage unit. By doing this I will be able to keep my dive gear and other things I feel I can not live without. I justify the dive gear because I make a business out of it. Now I have to justify the rest. I will be going through it all with a fine tooth comb.

Why would I live on a boat? I want a boat. I want to go sailing when I would like to, independently of Sea Scouts, friends, or my racing. I want to sail to the San Juan Islands on my terms and time table. I enjoyed my trip there with the Sea Scout a lot and would like to be able to go there with a boat of my own. I want to sail to Alaska. Sailing to Alaska is a dream of mine. I want to sail to Puerto Rico and start a restaurant with Nik. I want to spend a year or two living in Seattle on my boat. I want to sail to San Francisco and watch the Americas Cup from my boat. And most of all my friends all ask if I can take them sailing and I want to say yes!

So as I begin this process of buying a boat and living on it I feel that I should start writing about it all. I want a journal to look back on. I want a way to share my experience with my family and friends.

What boat am I buying? I am buying Cathleen. Some of you who are my friends will know her. She is the boat that my ex and I bought together. I am buying this boat for many reasons. She is well equipped, she is beautiful, she is stout, she is a boat I know I can love. She has enough wood to be pretty, but not so much she is high maintenance. Her wood in in the right places, in the cabin. She sails well, she is comfortable under sail. She has been lived on before. She has not all but most all of the things one could want in a house. Buying Cathleen will take the burden off the current owner who bought it for me and set the world right.

What kind of boat is Cathleen? Cathleen is a sailboat. What kind of sailboat is Cathleen? She is a Cascade 27.

There are things I will miss about a house. there are parts of my life that will change. Some of the things you take for granted in life are harder on a boat. Some of the things that you have come to expect from your living space just wont be there for me. How do I know that I can live this way. Well how did I grow up? Did I have a TV, dishwasher, laundry, flush toilet, electricity, sewer, automatic heat? No when I grew up in a two room cabin in the woods with my mother I did not have these things. I will not have to live without all of the things I mentioned just some. Some will be scaled down to boat size. Some of them will be manual and required more maintenance then a normal house would.


Will Cathleen be the last boat I ever buy? Not likely, I would put money on the fact that someday, when I have more money I will buy a larger boat. I feel this is the right boat in my price range for me, now. I am excited and alive with the prospect of it all.

What else is motivating me to do something crazy like this? I am Damien, I am not like you in so many ways. I am also like you in so many ways, I want a place of my own to call my own. I just need to do it on a smaller scale. So in the end by buying a boat and living on it I can have my own space and have a boat. I could not afford to do both without combining them.

I understand your questions and hope I have answered most of them.

My Girl

I was thinking back to when I was a single guy going through a few unsuccessful relationships after a long spell of being single. And how there was this one girl who caught my eye. The bummer was that she was so pretty I didn't think I had a chance with her. She was also mature enough that I wasn't sure that the age gap could be bridged. Then I found out what she did for a living and that she had a PHD. At that point I knew I had no chance. I was doomed only to dream about her. Which I did.
One night to prove to my roommate that he shouldn't be so shy I asked her to dance. The dance went well and I was surprised how down to earth this girl I had made into a goddess in my mind was. I made it a habit of dancing with her when I could. Then one night my favorite song came on and I grabbed her half because she was right there and half be cause I wanted it to be with her. I danced like I had nothing to lose and it was my last chance ever to dance with her or anyone else. I went home with a grin on my face that night because of that dance. Shortly after that dance my sister went missing and I had to leave town. I hiked for miles and miles trying to find her. I had blisters and my legs burned so bad I couldn't even walk on flat ground. I would get up the next morning and go hiking to find her because there was some glimmer of hope that she might be out there and still alive. I hiked 14 to 20 miles a day for nearly a week in some of the steepest areas I have ever hiked with no trails and only a map and hope. The helicopters flew over head searching for her. I wanted my sister. I hurt, I bled, I cried and I kept hoping. Then one day after I got home from my hiking and the Sheriff came to my mothers door and I knew when I saw his face that it was over. I will never forget the effect it has on a mother to hear that her daughter is dead. I was strong for her and I held her and comforted her and held her more. I called my brothers and family to tell them. I held myself up so everyone had someone to talk to. I spent hours putting a slide show together for her wake. I cried myself to sleep late at night. I stood tall and held everyone at the wake I told them all it would be okay. We would get through it. As I drove 500 miles home alone I wondered what life was really about. I wondered if it mattered. I wasn't sure. About a week after I got back and my legs and feet could stand it, I went dancing. I needed it. I needed to feel my normal life again. It wasn't normal. It was like looking through a window at normal life. I sat there wondering why I had come and if I should go home. There were a few people that asked me to dance I would dance with them and they would ask me how I was and I would answer them and they would look at me and not know what to say. I would go back to my seat and I would just sit there wondering again what I as doing. Then came the girl of my dreams and she asked me to dance. I said yes. We danced and she asked me where I had been(I found out later she had been looking for me at dances since our last dance.) I told her where I had been and what had happened. I don't remember what she said but I melted. I nearly cried and she talked to me for a while after we danced. She told me to call her and talk to her if I needed to. I called her and spilled my life story for the next week or so over the phone. She didn't talk much she just listed to me. Then one night she called me and told me to meet her at her place and to take her to dinner. I did. After wards I took her home and I was sitting in her house on her couch thinking here is the girl of my dreams and all I can do is talk. I was too shy to kiss her. Even after she told me she had a thing for me. I left in a strange state. Thinking there was still no chance but there was no way I was going to let that other guy she told me about have her. The rest is history. I love her so much. D