What??? You Live on a Boat????

Capt. Paul and I are officially less than a year and a half from throwing our dock lines for good and cruising full time. We have also been living aboard for 2 years now so I figured it was time to dust off the old blog and catch everyone up.

Two years of living aboard has taught me a lot of things, probably too many to mention in just one blog so I’ll just try to hit the highlights.

Most people think we live in a row boat.  

One of the first questions people ask me, with a look of abject horror on their face, when they find out that I live on a boat is “What do you do when it rains???” I typically look at them patiently and try to reply with a minimum of sarcasm. “I go inside like most people do.” The usual follow up question is “Well, what if it gets really hot or really cold, then what do you do???” Again, patiently, as if talking to a small child, I respond, “I turn on the heat or the air conditioning.” From there, the little Q & A game goes on to include things like “My God, what do you eat? Where do you sleep? How do you shower?” Contrary to popular belief, we live on a 2 bedroom, 2 bath motor yacht with all the comforts of home and a view that most people would kill for.

People think we are either rich or poor, nothing in between.

Most people hear the word "yacht" and think "Well, it must be nice to be rich enough to own a yacht!" Technically, a yacht is any boat that is 40' or longer. Our boat is 41' so we just made it! Besides, if we were rich, we'd be living on a mega yacht!

On the other hand, some people just assume that a catastrophic financial hardship has befallen you and you can't afford your house anymore so you are forced to sell everything you own and live in squalor on the aforementioned upside down dining room table with a motor attached. I'm happy to report that there is some middle ground here. Some of us are lucky enough to have the freedom to choose this lifestyle, and the wherewithal to carry it out.

I've become obsessed with the weather.

While living on a boat is, for the most part, blissful, it is not without it's inherent dangers. Pirates & the occasional Kraken not withstanding, I would rate the weather as perhaps one of the biggest challenges that we have to deal with on a regular basis.

Some consider weather prediction a science, I consider it and those that predict it the equivalent of a 3 year old throwing paint on a wall and calling it art. I'm sad to say that I have learned in the last 2 years that weather predictions are seldom correct. Hence my need for numerous weather apps. I figure if I look at all of them and take the average I'd at least be 50% correct..... sometimes.

Tracking down strange smells or sounds is harder than it seems.

Unlike living in a dirt house, living aboard affords you the opportunity to get very intimate with all of the environmental systems on your boat. After the first month you are pretty much familiar and are used to all of the interesting sounds that your boat makes so you hardly even notice it. But, God forbid you hear an unfamiliar sound! All persons aboard spring into action to locate the source of the sound to insure lines haven't come loose, environmental systems aren't failing, or that the Kraken hasn't come a knockin'! This is often a comical scene because on a boat noises are omnidirectional and sound like they are coming from everywhere, much like the dreaded Kraken! It's very Keystone Cop-esque.

Again, unlike houses, boats have all of their environmental systems (heat, AC, plumbing, etc.) contained within so as not to pollute the waters we live in. While this is seems like a neat little package, it does require some maintenance to ensure that your tidy little waterfront home doesn't start to smell like a Jiffy John after a 3 day summer festival. We practically have it down to a science now but on rare occasions a strange smell will rear it's ugly head and thus begins the tedious task of sniffing every nook and cranny of the boat to determine it's origin. To my knowledge, Krakens don't have a distinguishing aroma so hunting down smells is not nearly as stressful has hunting down sounds.

Things are over rated. Scenery is under rated.

One of the other things we frequently get asked is "What did you do with all of your things???" Now this, my friends, is what separates the boys from the men, the girls from the women, and the fair weather boaters from the salty dogs. If you need "things" to make you feel good, define yourself, or otherwise give you security, then this is not the life for you. That is not to say that we don't have keepsakes or things of sentimental value, we've just pared it down to those of utmost importance.

We made the decision to move aboard full time in the fall of 2013, so we spent that entire winter going through all of our worldly belongings to decide what was really important to us. We digitized all of our photographs & music, made huge donations to charities, and gave the rest of it to family members. The house was sold the following April and we moved aboard full time in May of 2014. I am here to tell you that I don't miss that household of things in the least. As a matter of fact, I can't even remember what any of it was or why I even kept it. It turns out that finding that tattered girl scout sash with the meager 3 badges on it did not fill my heart with nostalgia and warm memories. It was merely a painful reminder of how much I sucked at girl scouting. It's embarrassing that I kept it for 45 years. Good riddance!

One of the best things about living on a boat is the scenery. It is the best vantage point to see Mother Nature's beauty and she never disappoints. Boaters are some of the most serene people you will ever meet and it's because they appreciate the simple things in life, like a breath taking sunrise or a stirring moonrise.

If you get the chance to be at a marina at either dusk or dawn you'll think you're in the sunrise beach scene of the movie "City of Angels" where all of the angels gather at the shore to feel the sun rise.

A sort of reverent hush falls over the area as people sit on their boats or on the dock and watch the amazing transition from day to night or night to day. During this time you find yourself truly in the moment and all of the white noise of your daily life just washes away like a cleansing shower. It's in that moment that you realize that you are exactly where you belong, doing what your were always meant to do. I can tell you that it's one of the best feelings in the world realizing that your life long dream has become your reality.

Cooking With Capt. Paul: A Quick Breakfast

When Capt. Paul isn't busy keeping Celtic Dream in tip top running condition, which any boater knows is a full time job, he's busy researching and testing recipes in the galley. Here's a quick and easy breakfast recipe perfect for those mornings right before getting under way when you want something more than a granola bar.

Cinnamon Roll Waffles

Total time : 10 minutes

Serving: 2-3

INGREDIENTS:

1 tube of pre-packaged cinnamon rolls

(we used Pillsbury)

DIRECTIONS:

Pop open and remove cinnamon rolls. Separate out each roll. Using either a waffle iron or a griddler with the waffle plates (as shown), place one roll in each segmented spot.

Close the lid to compress the dough and spread it out. Hold the lid down tightly for the first minute or so as the dough starts to rise. Cook for 1-2 minutes or until are golden brown and don't stick to the waffle iron.

Remove the lid from the plastic icing container and microwave until warm. Pour warm icing over waffles and enjoy!

Cooking with Capt. Paul

Welcome to the section of our blog called "Cooking with Capt. Paul". Let there be no mistake who the chef is on Celtic Dream. Lest you question his credentials, Capt. Paul is a retired firefighter and has been cooking restaurant quality food for decades. When we moved onto our boat he didn't even blink at the challenges our small galley posed. Armed with a convection oven, griddler, electric frying pan and his laptop full of recipes, he hit the ground running and never looked back! Once a month we will share some of his recipes adapted for cooking aboard. So enjoy and feel free to share his creations.

LOBSTER GRILLED CHEESE & TOMATO-BASIL ORZO SOUP

Lobster Grilled Cheese
Total Time: 30 min.
Servings: 2

INGREDIENTS:
1 lb. cooked lobster meat
2 slices smoked gouda cheese
2 slices provolone cheese
2 slices swiss cheese
4 slices hearty sourdough bread
Russian dressing

DIRECTIONS:
Chop up lobster meat into bite size pieces. Spread russian dressing on both insides of the sourdough bread. Place a slice of gouda cheese on the bottom slice of bread. Add lobster meat and then top with a slice of swiss and a slice of provolone cheese. Grill until the cheese starts to melt and the outside of the bread gets golden brown.

NOTES: I use a griddler for this recipe but if you decide to use a frying pan I recommend buttering the outside of the bread.

Tomato-Basil Orzo Soup
Prep/Total Time: 30 min.
Servings: 4

INGREDIENTS:
½ cup each chopped carrot, celery
⅛ tsp each dried basil, oregano
2 Tbsp olive oil
1 can (19 Ounces) Ready-To-Serve
Tomato Basil or Hearty Tomato
1 cup chicken broth
⅓ cup uncooked orzo pasta

DIRECTIONS:
In a small saucepan, saute the carrot, celery, onion, basil, oregano and
thyme in oil for 8-10 minutes or until vegetables are crisp-tender.
Add soup and broth. Bring to a boil. Stir in orzo. Reduce heat; simmer,
uncovered, for 10-12 minutes or until orzo and vegetables are tender.

NOTES: This recipe was tested with ready-to-serve Progresso Tomato
Basil soup

Moving Toward the Dream

The first marina where we docked Celtic Dream was on the South River just below Annapolis. It was convenient to our house, a mere 25 minute drive depending on traffic. You have to say "depending on traffic" whenever you judge distance by travel time in the DC/Baltimore area because it can vary by hours! Now, when I say marina, I'm using the term very loosely.

There were docks with security gates and that was a plus considering that the bar that was on the property usually ended the weekend nights with police presence. The "bath house" was conveniently located under said bar and the locks on the doors seldom worked. Nothing is more exciting than being in the shower and hearing a bunch of drunk 20 somethings either, crying, screaming or puking. The highlight of the "bath house" was that the changing area just outside the shower curtain was open to the rest of the bathroom, making the odds of you inadvertantly becoming that night's entertainment pretty good. Thank God Celtic Dream has 2 decent showers.

That leads us to the water situation. The water on the docks was foul. Our showers usually reeked of sulfur and the ice from the ice maker was always a lovely shade of gold. God forbid you rinsed your boat off with it. The resulting copper stains looked far worse that the salt buildup did! We finally bought a fancy water softener/filtration device. The booklet said that the filter could soften 1,000 gallons of water before it would have to be recharged. We couldn't even make it to 300 gallons before having to throw away the filter.

The electric wasn't much better. Several times a month the electricity would just go out and they'd have to call either the local electric company or some fly by night electrician who looked like he might have been homeless. The end result was that you could be without electricity for a couple hours or a couple days. It was anybody's guess.

Our slip faced the public access ramp. At first we found this endlessly entertaining. We would make it our happy hour routine to go out on the sunpad on the bow and sit and watch the hapless masses defying logic and physics while trying to get their boats out of the water. It was like a live version of America's Funniest Home Videos right there in our front yard! Of course it's all fun and games until some yahoo wakes your boat in the middle of the night so hard that you think it was surely a collision. Then there was the ignorant meat heads in cigarette boats that had to rev their engines for a half hour at the ramp before hauling ass through the no wake zone. Ah yes, good times!

The best part of our entire experience was the "management" team at the marina. Again, I'm using the term "management" very loosely. The "manager" actually lived on the property in an apartment over the office which seemed like a plus at first. We liked the idea of someone always being there especially when we were not. It turns out that the management plan for the marina was modeled after a frat party. When he wasn't out in his fishing boat, the manager could usually be found at the bar, which left the poor high school girl at the desk in charge of things. At the very least they could have given her a book of nautical terms so she could appear to be speaking our language. English was of course her first language but apparently her only response to any inquiry was "I'll have to ask the manager." This rendered her useless for anything other than collecting money for a bag of ice. When you were actually lucky enough to corner the manager and ask him a question, he would give you any answer he thought you wanted to hear, which had absolutely nothing to do with reality.

For example, the road leading down to the marina was a complete cow path. It had pot holes inside of pot holes that could swallow a car whole. So one day, after I got a flat tire because one of the pot holes tried to swallow my front tire, I asked if there were any plans for repaving the road. I was told that he was currently getting bids to have not only the road but the entire sinking parking lot repaved (It flooded at high tide regularly). He went on and on about how great it was going to be. I had only known him for a couple of months so I believed him. That was 3 years ago and when I recently drove some friends to that marina to pick up their car it still hadn't been repaved. I managed to escape without having to re-tire my car.

There were a few water men that kept their boats at the marina and we noticed that they were fueling their boats at the docks. I found this odd since we were right across the river from a fuel dock where we usually fueled up. The next thing we know there were several boats regularly putting fuel in their boats at the dock. I don't find this to be a safe practice and in previous weeks 2 boats had exploded while fueling near our marina. Paul is a retired firefighter and he was totally uncomfortable with them doing it anywhere near our boat. I brought this to the attention of the "manager" and he feigned being appalled by the notion and vowed to put an end to it. Not a week later we saw him standing there drinking a beer while someone on the same dock fueled their boat.

Now, my husband Paul and I are about as laid back as they come. We mind our own business and tend to just go with the flow. We're not demanding by any means so any one of these "inconveniences" taken alone would probably not have bothered us. Unfortunately, after 2 years of all of this, day in and day out, our patience was wearing thin. 

On Memorial Day Weekend of 2013 we had planned to stay on the boat for a nice long weekend. We got up in the morning and I was up on the aft deck starting to cook some bacon while Paul was below starting the coffee. That's when Paul realized that we had no power. Again. My bacon had started to cook but was now cooling. We went to the office to find out what was going on and were told that the power was turned off so that the "electrician" could work on it. On a holiday weekend???!!! I was furious! When we came out of the office we saw the electrician/homeless guy fumbling mindlessly with a breaker. 

That, my friends, was the proverbial straw that broke the camel's back. This whole situation was ruining my dream. If every time we came here to get away we left pissed off then we were not going to spend another minute in this dump! We packed up our half cooked bacon and went home and spent the rest of the weekend looking at marinas.

A week later, after I got home from work, we pulled in our lines and fenders and left in an approaching storm. Paul and I are typically very conservative when it comes to boating. We try to never go out in bad conditions and both knew that we should have waited but it was supposed to be nasty all weekend and we just couldn't bear another wasted weekend spent there. It was 6:30 in the evening, the wind was picking up and the sky was getting dark. I looked at the radar and figured we had about an hour before all hell broke loose. We looked at the charts and figured we had a small weather window and could just make it. We started hauling ass down the South River, headed to our new home at Herrington Harbour North. 

When we got out into the Chesapeake Bay it was even darker and we were running against a punishing head wind in at least 4' seas. The only other boats on the bay were a couple of freighters heading up to Baltimore, and for good reason! The conditions were getting worse and were slowing us down, our weather window was closing fast. To make matters worse, we had never been to Herrington Harbour North by boat and were unfamiliar with the approach. The markers are typically tricky to spot unless you know where to look for them and as the blinding rain started it became almost impossible so we had to rely on the chart plotter for the last leg of the trip. We finally spotted the red marker and made the hairpin turn into Herring Bay and basically surfed our way up to to Herrington Harbour North. Captain Paul did an amazing job making the 3 right angle turns through the unfamiliar thoroughfare in high wind to get us safely into our slip. We were soaked to the bone by the time we wrestled the lines to the dock and sat down to have a beer. We were exhausted by then but confident that we were moving in the right direction toward our Celtic Dream.

All Because Two People Shared a Dream

I always knew that someday I would have my own boat and that I’d live on it and cruise around the islands. I was only 8 at the time but I knew it like I knew my own name. I’d think about it every time I climbed onto my grandfather’s little 16 ft. boat, the Li-Da-Pa. He’d let me drive it every now and then and it thrilled me to no end. I was never happier than when I was on the water in that little boat. I loved everything about it; the sun glinting off the water in the morning; the smell of the salt air; and yes, even the smell of the docks when we came back in. The sea called to my young heart loud and clear and someday I would answer that call in my own boat.

Sadly, four years later my grandfather died unexpectedly and with him went my sea faring adventures. The Li-Da-Pa sat in my uncle’s yard on a trailer rotting into disrepair. Every time I saw it those great memories of being on the water would flood back to me, pulling at my heart. It would be years before I’d be back on boats but every summer I’d sit on the beach watching the boats go by, dreaming my dream. Someday….

The business of adult life carried on and if not for summers at the beach dreaming my dream it may have all but vanished. I have lived near Annapolis and worked in Washington, DC my whole life so I’ve spent many hours walking the docks looking at the yachts and wondering what it must be like to live the dream. It was surely out of my reach at the time but I just knew that someday that would be me.

When I turned 30 I became a certified scuba diver and once again found myself vacationing on boats but this time I was on boats in the Caribbean. Life on the water in paradise! It was just how I imagined it would be! I looked in awe at the people living on the boats as we passed by. They were living my dream. How did they do it? I talked to anyone who would give me the time of day, asking them to tell me their story, trying to find clues as to how to make my dream come true. It seemed that unless I was independently wealthy or won the lottery I was just going to have to keep dreaming my dream. But some day it was going to come true…. I just knew it.

When my mother remarried, she married a retired naval officer who loved boating. They bought a 42’ Grand Banks and began living the dream! I would go out with them any chance I could. My step-father taught me how to navigate while my mom taught me the ins and outs of living aboard and line handling. I’d spend long weekends and vacations with them as often as I could, soaking up information from them like a sponge. I loved staying on board with them. The lifestyle suited me better than I thought it would, if only for brief periods.

I was 46 when I met my soul mate, Paul. I never imagined that my soul mate would be wearing a kilt and playing the bagpipes but it was fate and fate decides itself. We didn’t know we were soul mates at first, that came later, but when I told him of my dream of retiring, selling everything I owned, buying a boat and cruising to the islands, I saw a little spark in his eyes. He was a dreamer too! Did I mention that Paul lived in Michigan? He had grown up fishing the Great Lakes and was no stranger to boating. As it turns out, he had a similar dream but he was going to buy an RV and see the country. He said that cruising sounded just as good, if not better so we began sharing the dream.

We had a long distance relationship for 3 years and in 2010 Paul froze his retirement, moved to Maryland and we got married, overlooking the water at my parent’s yacht club. At that time I still had 6 more years before I could retire from my federal job and he still had 2 years before he could collect his retirement. But the dream was getting closer than either of us could have imagined.

In the spring of 2011 the boating market was at an all-time low and it occurred to us that we should probably finance a boat while we still had jobs so we started looking. We got pre-approved for financing and had our down payment in the bank. It was a buyer’s market so it should have been a piece of cake. Having never bought a boat before, we had no idea what to expect. I assumed it would be like buying a car. Find one you like, sign the papers and drive away. We poured over listings and websites until we figured out what we wanted. The first couple of boats we looked at we contacted the seller’s broker for the showing. I remember standing on the fly bridge of the first boat looking at the overflowing ashtrays and empty beer cans in the cup holders thinking “Are we on the right boat?” I was horrified when we went below and found the galley sink full of encrusted, dirty dishes and heads that looked like they hadn’t seen a toilet brush in years! I can’t imagine what it would have looked like if they weren’t trying to sell it! We were totally disheartened.

A week later when we looked at a second boat, it was more of the same. Now I was mad. These people had the dream in their hands! I had spent my entire life yearning for what they had and they were throwing it away like some toy they had tired of! I felt like they were somehow disrespecting my dream.

Next we decided to hire a broker, figuring he could save us from looking at boats that weren’t in any shape to buy. We looked at several other boats and it seemed to be going well until we found one that we wanted to put a contract on. We were told that nobody had even looked at the boat in over a year and it would be just a matter of signing the papers. Miraculously however, the day we decided to make an offer, another mystery buyer appeared and a bidding war started. It went higher than our budget would allow so we backed out. 9 months later that particular boat was still on the market. We subsequently fired our unscrupulous broker and went about looking on our own.

In July of 2011, one week after my 50th birthday, we found our dream. Celtic Dream is a 40’ Maxum SCA Motor Yacht. She needed a lot of work and some TLC but we’ve found that when nurturing our dream we’ve got an endless supply of that. When we did our renaming ceremony, Paul played the bagpipes on her bow while I offered bottled spirits to the Gods, humbly asking for safe passage and calm seas. It really was a dream come true.

Paul and I have been living on Celtic Dream 9 months out of the year on the Chesapeake Bay, south of Annapolis. Paul has since retired and I commute to my job in DC. In a few more years we’ll be ready to take off so we decided to put the house up on the market and move aboard full time. We’re planning on doing the Great Loop and then heading down the Caribbean chain, living our Celtic Dream. So if you’re sitting on the docks and you hear the skirl of bagpipes in the distance, it just may be us on the horizon. It may have taken nearly 50 years to realize my dream but the wait was totally worth it because now I get to share it with my soul mate. I never lost sight of my dream and, despite the odds, it came true. Never lose sight of yours!

Helpful Tips for Riding the Metro 2

This is always a work in progress considering that every day somebody behaves badly on the subway so here are a few more useful tips. Feel free to add your own!

Dear Nervous Lady Sitting Next to Me,
You seem like a commuter but the fact that you are reading the tattered Panera Bread menu out loud leads me to believe that you either have a nervous disorder, you’re a tourist, or you’re out on a day pass. If you’re going to ride the entire way into the city could you at least move on to the soup section of the menu?

Dear Inexperienced and/or Otherwise Shitty Train Driver,
Not only has your ridiculous habit of slamming on the brakes in the middle of the tunnel caused some poor elderly woman to land in a pregnant woman’s lap but if you keep it up I’m going to puke in the cheap weave of the lady sitting in front of me! You should have been a cab driver!

Helpful Tips for Riding the Metro

It is bad enough that I have to hurtle through the bowels of Washington, DC in a dirty tube, tastelessly decorated in orange, twice a day, five days a week. It would be unpleasant enough even if everyone on the train was normal and acted accordingly but they aren’t and they don’t. That said, here is my plea to the masses for trying to make our hellish commute a little more pleasant:

Dear Fat Person,
If your top is not long enough to cover your rolls when you lift up your arm, please do not get on a crowded train. There is nothing worse than staring point blank into someone’s sweaty belly while seated on the train.

Dear Parents with Unruly Children,
If your children are screaming, crying, or running around like little maniacs, do not bring them on the train. You think your children are cute because you love them. I do not and therefore only find them tolerable for about 20 seconds and that’s if they’re behaving themselves. If you insist on feeding them sugar for breakfast, walk them to daycare and spare us the madness of your bad choices.


Dear People with Questionable Dental Hygiene,
If you are a mouth breather who doesn’t brush your teeth in the morning, for the love of God, at least have a mint. Your reeking gingivitis is nauseating! We can possibly hold our collective breath until we get to work!

Dear Capt. Ignorant, picking your nose,
We can see you!

Dear Smokers,
If you must smoke on the way to the subway, take a cab! If I wanted to sit in an ash tray, I’d go to a bar in West Virginia. Oh and this just in...smoking causes cancer!

Dear People with Mind Numbing Body Odor,
Take a shower and buy a Speed Stick! Better yet, take the bus. They stink anyway and nobody will notice.

I realize that I’m just scratching the surface here but I hope this helps. By following these simple guidelines perhaps we can make our little slice of hell more tolerable.