You live on a boat?! How is that? Does it move all the time? How does the weather affect you? Where do you keep your stuff? Do you have electricity? How about fresh water? How’s the sleeping situation? How do you deal with waste? Are you connected to cable and WiFi? Does your dog like living on a boat? What happens when you go sailing?”
Yes, it’s true. Sleeping on a boat is like being rocked to sleep every night. We keep our stateroom hatch open a crack year-round and can hear the waves and seabirds as we drift off and awaken. When it’s stormy it can be a wild ride, but still so comfy to be cocooned in our bunk while Mother Nature and Father Neptune battle it out.
After nine years of doing the “mattress mambo” and changing out varieties of foam combinations, we made the investment in a real mattress for our bunk! This is not a “run down to the local mattress store, spend a few hours laying on samples, move a few pieces of furniture to clear a path for the delivery guys to set up” kind of situation. As everything else on a boat, it is more complicated and expensive than that.
To start with, boat beds are not like home beds. At all. Boat beds, called bunks or berths, are in staterooms (bedrooms) built into the superstructure of the boat. They are a wooden or fiberglass box frame usually built on top of drawers and/or storage space and are immobile.
Amy saw the poster tacked to the phone pole at the bus stop.
Do you have electricity and water? Heidi and Aaron get this question quite often. Yes, I am a boat. But I’m a finely appointed vessel, built to cruise the world. So although I don’t offer amenities such as a dishwasher and washing machine, I have systems that provide far more than a roughing-it camping experience. These systems are quite complex though, and we are very fortunate that our Captain is an electrician who understands the intricacies of maintaining my electrical system and will be well-versed on my new water-maker in the coming months.
Aaron and Heidi were both raised by sailing fathers and being on or around water is as natural as walking on a sidewalk for landlubbers for them. Their prior spouses both enjoyed boating … at a much faster speed than sailing generally allows. And definitely not on a full time basis. So, neither got as much water time as they craved until they bought me. Now it’s water-time all the time!
Boats require work. Lots of it. Being exposed to the elements 24/7 means that Aaron and Heidi have to constantly be on the lookout for damage by rain or sun, as well as keeping up on regular chores and replacing my worn parts. I guess you could say that I’m a high maintenance sort of girl. 😉 
