maintenance happens
I'm listening to young sailboat liveaboards describe the maintenance hassles. I think "now add raking leaves, mowing the lawn, painting the fence, shovelling snow, weeding the beds, cleaning the pond filter, repairing an entire house worth of windows, doors, rooftop, and so forth, fuel for the whole enterprise, and random vandalism and theft always a consideration.
Well, I do live in the cheaper part of town. We'll still have our vehicles I expect, and the boat might be equated to the house in that instead of cleaning gutters and shovelling snow, etc., I'm doing the hull. Instead of re-roofing and painting trim, I'm putting new epoxy on the deck and painting the hull. Etc. I mean, it's kind of a step down because the demesnes for which I'll care would fit in the garage on my current kingdom. My house may be small but it would take a 50+ footer to equal the space available. If we applied boat principles to this house it would cost a fortune and create the space of a mansion in 18x19xbasement/main/attic crawlspace. Yeah, it's a tiny cabin.
I definitely will miss my tub and wish there was a fix, but I'm determined to find ways around it. I've considered hot springs near the coast which I know are abundant. They won't be near enough to use usually, though, as they'd be a day or two away from our home town. I also considered making arrangements with a weekly bed and breakfast to barter, earn or buy a couple hours in the tub once a week. If I'm willing to come by on a weekday afternoon when nobody needs the room and I have something worthwhile to offer in rent, it should be possible.
Oooh, anti-bug tip on a boat here from youtube, replace all paper packaging. Cans can be relabled with sharpie, remove their paper lables. Don't buy stuff packed in paper that can't be shifted before storage.
I did that in Vancouver when I found roaches. I stocked everything in hard sealed plastic or glass containers. I used canning jars mostly, available cheap at the grocery store and nicely transparent. I wasn't keeping bugs out of my apartment from the store, though. I was denying the building's bugs any access to my stores by moving them into sealed containers. Nothing to eat meant no incentive to invade and combined with extreme cleanliness and chalk powder at all baseboards, I succeeded for 4 months to live roach free in an infested building.
So the same methods will come to play when we move to BC on or off boat. So to my mind, these kids don't know from housework. The hours I put into scrubbing floors, wiping walls and counters, caretaking the garden, the pets, the trees, the flowers, the fencing, the public sidewalks, and all our possessions just dwarfs what a boat requires. I'm going to be stepping down to a retirement! Cost wise we already know Dan's getting a step down to retirement too. Neither of us sees life in the sense of stopping work to live on vapour currency like our elders did. That was a brief span of about 50 or 60 years that people could expect a period of leisure and they were usually too sick to work anyway. those who weren't often did not stop, only stopped working hard at it. If you like what you do and you're good at it you just slow down and get more technical about it. It gets more fun. So downsizing means being able to slow down the train we're on. If those kids only knew they'd be laughing every time something broke because it was so damn easy to find and fix.
Every try and find the leak in your ceiling? It runs down beams. It's maniac, and the damage it does to the room quite ruins a whole chunk of wall. In a boat you can see where it's from and the bilge pumps it away and it's all built to handle being high humidity. Slap a little more caulking on it after getting it dry and you're good, most of the time. No roof to shingle and tar. With my luck I'll fall in love with a wooden boat. I fully expect to. Wood is so alive and real that I couldn't say no to it even if it was going to ruin my life with all that rot and life. I expect it's less humid than a glass boat too. They call fiberglass just "glass" because everyone knows what they mean and it's easier. Well we'll see what comes along. Maybe concrete or steel, it's impossible to know till we meet! A boat is going to be more intense even than house hunting in that sense. I fell so hard for this house when I entered her. it was like I was being hugged at first sight. I think the boat will feel that way when we meet her. I just hope she'll come at a price we can afford and not so much work we'll never get it done. I'm a bit nervous about how much work I want on any boat. If I could drop 50K on a boat I'd have a solar/diesel electric boat with all electric everything, all tied to a computer that would let us digitally activate all the switches. There'd be manual overrides on each circuit as it currently is, allowing us to power down the computer if we wish. However, it's also possible to have a boat that will do everything herself using electric winches, gauges and sensors. I mean yes, a boat that could sail autonmously with just a destination inputted, theoretically. Imagine, if you would, that the boat could see in real time as well as the digital maps for everything from depth to real objects sailing past, analzye it like a google autonomous car, and change course, even under sail, with or without the electric prop motor. While I think I would be too distrustful still, it's possible to have a boat you can call with your phone to come to you and have it lift it's own anchor or cast it's own mooring line off and sail over to where you're standing making the call. close enough to board perhaps, or even drop anchor a short distance so you can use your dinghy the rest of the way. Or send it back to it's parking spot after you've disembarked (with the dinghy just in case)
So yeah, I think daydreams are the stuff of invention and I think this idea of mine is completely feasible in the long run. I think it's something Dan and I have the knowledge to make happen too, with our combination of repair, build, mechanical and mental engineering plus digital fascinations. We know how to build a computer, wire a house or car, monkey with wiring, replace fittings, fixtures, and modules, free stuck bolts and drill out and replace rivets. All that stuff. We're so seriously ready for this to happen but HOW am I going to survive the next five years selling and organizing our stuff?
I really should play the lottery, that'd make this plan far easier! Just pay our debts, buy our dream boat customized for us by others, and let 1-800-junk deal with our leftover crap.
Well, I do live in the cheaper part of town. We'll still have our vehicles I expect, and the boat might be equated to the house in that instead of cleaning gutters and shovelling snow, etc., I'm doing the hull. Instead of re-roofing and painting trim, I'm putting new epoxy on the deck and painting the hull. Etc. I mean, it's kind of a step down because the demesnes for which I'll care would fit in the garage on my current kingdom. My house may be small but it would take a 50+ footer to equal the space available. If we applied boat principles to this house it would cost a fortune and create the space of a mansion in 18x19xbasement/main/attic crawlspace. Yeah, it's a tiny cabin.
I definitely will miss my tub and wish there was a fix, but I'm determined to find ways around it. I've considered hot springs near the coast which I know are abundant. They won't be near enough to use usually, though, as they'd be a day or two away from our home town. I also considered making arrangements with a weekly bed and breakfast to barter, earn or buy a couple hours in the tub once a week. If I'm willing to come by on a weekday afternoon when nobody needs the room and I have something worthwhile to offer in rent, it should be possible.
Oooh, anti-bug tip on a boat here from youtube, replace all paper packaging. Cans can be relabled with sharpie, remove their paper lables. Don't buy stuff packed in paper that can't be shifted before storage.
I did that in Vancouver when I found roaches. I stocked everything in hard sealed plastic or glass containers. I used canning jars mostly, available cheap at the grocery store and nicely transparent. I wasn't keeping bugs out of my apartment from the store, though. I was denying the building's bugs any access to my stores by moving them into sealed containers. Nothing to eat meant no incentive to invade and combined with extreme cleanliness and chalk powder at all baseboards, I succeeded for 4 months to live roach free in an infested building.
So the same methods will come to play when we move to BC on or off boat. So to my mind, these kids don't know from housework. The hours I put into scrubbing floors, wiping walls and counters, caretaking the garden, the pets, the trees, the flowers, the fencing, the public sidewalks, and all our possessions just dwarfs what a boat requires. I'm going to be stepping down to a retirement! Cost wise we already know Dan's getting a step down to retirement too. Neither of us sees life in the sense of stopping work to live on vapour currency like our elders did. That was a brief span of about 50 or 60 years that people could expect a period of leisure and they were usually too sick to work anyway. those who weren't often did not stop, only stopped working hard at it. If you like what you do and you're good at it you just slow down and get more technical about it. It gets more fun. So downsizing means being able to slow down the train we're on. If those kids only knew they'd be laughing every time something broke because it was so damn easy to find and fix.
Every try and find the leak in your ceiling? It runs down beams. It's maniac, and the damage it does to the room quite ruins a whole chunk of wall. In a boat you can see where it's from and the bilge pumps it away and it's all built to handle being high humidity. Slap a little more caulking on it after getting it dry and you're good, most of the time. No roof to shingle and tar. With my luck I'll fall in love with a wooden boat. I fully expect to. Wood is so alive and real that I couldn't say no to it even if it was going to ruin my life with all that rot and life. I expect it's less humid than a glass boat too. They call fiberglass just "glass" because everyone knows what they mean and it's easier. Well we'll see what comes along. Maybe concrete or steel, it's impossible to know till we meet! A boat is going to be more intense even than house hunting in that sense. I fell so hard for this house when I entered her. it was like I was being hugged at first sight. I think the boat will feel that way when we meet her. I just hope she'll come at a price we can afford and not so much work we'll never get it done. I'm a bit nervous about how much work I want on any boat. If I could drop 50K on a boat I'd have a solar/diesel electric boat with all electric everything, all tied to a computer that would let us digitally activate all the switches. There'd be manual overrides on each circuit as it currently is, allowing us to power down the computer if we wish. However, it's also possible to have a boat that will do everything herself using electric winches, gauges and sensors. I mean yes, a boat that could sail autonmously with just a destination inputted, theoretically. Imagine, if you would, that the boat could see in real time as well as the digital maps for everything from depth to real objects sailing past, analzye it like a google autonomous car, and change course, even under sail, with or without the electric prop motor. While I think I would be too distrustful still, it's possible to have a boat you can call with your phone to come to you and have it lift it's own anchor or cast it's own mooring line off and sail over to where you're standing making the call. close enough to board perhaps, or even drop anchor a short distance so you can use your dinghy the rest of the way. Or send it back to it's parking spot after you've disembarked (with the dinghy just in case)
So yeah, I think daydreams are the stuff of invention and I think this idea of mine is completely feasible in the long run. I think it's something Dan and I have the knowledge to make happen too, with our combination of repair, build, mechanical and mental engineering plus digital fascinations. We know how to build a computer, wire a house or car, monkey with wiring, replace fittings, fixtures, and modules, free stuck bolts and drill out and replace rivets. All that stuff. We're so seriously ready for this to happen but HOW am I going to survive the next five years selling and organizing our stuff?
I really should play the lottery, that'd make this plan far easier! Just pay our debts, buy our dream boat customized for us by others, and let 1-800-junk deal with our leftover crap.