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.
