Day Whatever....

How do you achieve marital relations on a boat? Especially when any movement sets the whole thing asway? When you don't even share a bunk? And your children sleep just 36 inches and two flimsy bulkheads away? It's the burning question most of my friends have asked (and the rest would probably admit to wondering about) since we first started talking about living aboard. Let's just say, you improvise. Quietly.

On a large boat, privacy is easy to come by. Spacious state rooms and roomy heads (bathrooms) easily allow for wardrobe changes, bodily functions and other biological imperatives. On our boat, privacy is a precious commodity. Often we pee with the door to the head propped open or have the kids turn their backs while we do a quick change out of PJ's and into swimsuits. Perhaps too much information for some readers, but the purpose of this blog is to chronicle the good, the bad and the ugly of this liveaboard life.

As with hygiene, your standards for privacy have to change when you live in such a small space. Our main salon, where we cook and sometimes eat, where John and I sleep, and where the kids hang out with their iPads when it's just too hot to be outside, is spread eagle arm's length wide and just over six feet long. Looking aft (toward the rear of the boat), my arms are maybe four inches short of touching on either side of the salon.

Pivoting forward, John easily touches the sides where the boat begins its gentle curve in toward the bow.

Beyond him lies the head:

Beyond that, the v-berth bookends our living space. Narrow cubbies run along either side, where the kids stash clothes, journals, iPads and water bottles. It's a haphazard and spartan existence, and we're amazed how quickly we've come to think of these cramped quarters as home. John said it reminded him of basic training, where a two-foot-by-six-foot bunk and small locker assigned to each airman was "home" for the duration. How coming back to it felt just as good as being back in your own bedroom. It's the same for us. After a day of sweating in the sun, the boat is a cool refuge. We've now had two quiet nights in the salon, the four of us, and it's been surprisingly relaxing. The perpetual entertainment of the iPads certainly contributed to the tranquility, but the kids also worked on their nature journals and hung out just talking with us. We've shared stories about our day while sharing meals around our small table:

Living this way has also challenged us to rethink what we consider living space. While the salon is a refuge after sundown, our wheezy marine air conditioner doesn't quite cool it sufficiently to make working below practical. For that, we don swimsuits and set up our laptops in the breezy screened-in patio off Navigator's or under one of the tiki huts on the beach. If the weather's bad, we wile away the time on the patio, too, as we did after dinner last night when bolts of lightning were crashing down not too far away. Where the salon is our eat-in kitchen, the cockpit is our Florida room just beyond. Navigator's has become our family room and the beach and tikis are our backyard. They may be public spaces, but we feel like they belong to us, and after the military tourists and locals go home for the night, they are.

At day's end, we make up our bunks in the salon -- John on the larger port (left) side settee, me on the narrower, shorter berth to starboard (right).

And sometimes, I have to share, too:

The many nights over the past six years spent using the boat as a floating hotel room have helped ease this transition. We worked out systems and processes for just about everything. When my friend Meg visited recently with her girls, we spent a charmed five days living aboard -- seven of us! -- and it worked mighty well, overall. I'm sure I frustrated her by not letting her cook or clean up after meals, but this one-butt galley requires sophisticated choreography just to do dishes! Living aboard for months at a time will require us to re-engineer some of what we've learned. What worked for a couple nights won't necessarily work for the long haul, and we're still figuring out what will. Tomorrow I set about the task of reconfiguring all of the "stuff" we've managed to cram into every conceivable nook and cranny of this vessel. Most of it can go elsewhere -- the dock box, the storage trailer we bought, the trash. We need the space. Although we've tried to minimize our list of essentials, it's still considerable. After all, we want toilet paper and food. Computers and propane for the grill. There are some trade offs we're not willing to make. Privacy we're willing to sacrifice; creature comforts not so much.

There's still part of me that thinks we'll be packing up our clothes and food, buttoning up the boat and heading back for the mainland. John feels it, too. And our professional commitments will make that a necessity from time to time. But I've already started making the mental shift to a permanent life here: gymnastics for Eve, racing with the local non-profit sailing center, guitar lessons for Ian maybe, dentist appointments and such. Do I think this is the last stop on our journey? I hope not. As I told someone today, being here now is the culmination of 20 years of dreaming and planning. But we're not there yet. When we push off the dock and head for blue water, THEN we'll be there. This is just practice.