Thoughts over a cup of coffee...

A few minutes before I head off to the hangar and I am running the weekend’s adventure through my mind. Not so much the actual learn-to-sail part, but the first brush with a life style of living-on-a-boat part. The only real reference I have is the 31-foot boat we used this weekend; not big enough to live on but certainly big enough to use for something like a two-week cruise.

In the cabin was everything you usually use in a day, bedroom, bathroom, kitchen, a place to sit at a table and even a desktop where one could work at a computer. There were lights and though this one had no heat or air-conditioning a larger boat would. We were out in the toolies so there was no Internet access, but that was a function of where the boat was parked, not the boat itself. There was even a bulkhead, (if one were so inclined) to hang a nice, flat-screen TV to play movies, and power to run it. It was all just really close together.

So I look around this house, which is the nicest house we have ever had and I really love it. We have this perfect, huge bedroom with a lot of floor space I rarely walk on. It has a walk in closet full of clothes I never wear. We have 2 ½ bathrooms, an empty bedroom, and a bedroom with 3 desks, two bookshelves, and two computers. We have a living room with two couches, tables, and a fireplace. (I love the fireplace.) And we have the coolest back yard in the Central West end, to say nothing of my garage. Why even think of not living here?

And yet… The backyard of the boat is the ocean, or the shore, or the lake, or whatever part of this huge planet you happen to have sailed to. I have the coolest back yard in the C.W.E. but the cockpit of a boat is the coolest front yard I have ever seen. A slightly bigger boat, (say a 38 foot Cat) would have plenty of room for things like books and tools, even bicycles and snorkeling gear. (I think my SCUBA diving days are over just because I’m not sure I want to go through the hassle of getting another certification.) And though I would miss my garage, I would be living on this huge machine with two engines, electrical systems, and all kinds of stuff I would get to tinker with all the time.

Living compact, light if you would, mobile, mostly self-contained, with the wind and the waves rather than isolated from them; I have to admit the idea is growing ever more alluring.

Then again, maybe I am just nearly as nutty as some people have always thought? Anyway, off to work…