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Written January, 2010 I grew up on the shores of Lake Superior and would often sit on the breakwater in Bayfield, Wisconsin and watch the sailboats come and go from the marina. I'd wave as the sailors passed, getting ready to dock or setting up for sail. I wondered who these people were and thought how lucky they were to be adventuring out on this grand lake. Even though it was in my backyard for eighteen years, I can count on one hand the number of times I'd been on the lake in a boat, including the 20 minute ferry-ride to Madeline Island. My family didn't have the resources nor the inclination for such activity so I struggled to be a contented bystander. However, contentment not being my nature, the idea of life on water continuously poked at me. It was many years later that I met my future husband and learned that he may have been one of those adventurous sailors I waved to on a crisp Bayfield afternoon. He'd had a sailboat at Madeline Island, just across from Bayfield, for much of the 1970's, at the same time I would have been dreaming on those rocks. Before we married, he informed me that his "lifelong dream is to live on a boat until I'm done". Hmmm....That idea didn't scare me. It actually quite intrigued me and recalled for me those fond dreamy afternoons when I was just a teenager. But I still had zero experience on the water and no concept of what "living aboard" would mean. What does one do all day when you live on a boat? Do you get lonely? Where would we go? And the one question that my mother still can't understand, Why would you live on a boat? Having lived on the water for most of the last eight years now with my husband and son, I feel adequately qualified to answer most of those questions. We choose this lifestyle as a means for seeing the world, for learning about different cultures and for living as a close-knit family. Think about your family's week-long summer vacation to see the Black Hills - or go to the coast - or camp in Yellowstone. Then picture being able to bring your entire house with you as your transportation. No seatbelts, no stinky roadside potty stops. Also imagine no time constraints. The kids don't need to be back at school (they are homeschooled), your job comes with you or, if you are really lucky, you are retired. When you stumble upon an interesting site, meet another traveling family, or become engaged with the local people, you stay to learn about the area, create friendships, and stockpile memories. Your kids touch the local flora, take photographs of regional animals and learn bits and pieces of different languages. You might learn to make a new meal with foreign ingredients or attend a festival you never knew existed. Whatever happens, your life becomes richer and it will stay with you forever, just like that week-long family trip when you were a kid. Daily life aboard is not that different from land based families. We have chores, school, play time and perhaps work time. What is different is that our environment changes as we choose. We may be at anchor in a remote harbor, in a fancy resort marina, docked in a rural fishing village or on a passage to a new location. Wherever we are, the beds need to be made, school needs to taught, meals need to be cooked, the boat needs to be maintained and fun is to be had. The beauty is the extras: hiking to the highest point on the island, snorkeling to view colorful sea life, exploring a new village or city, and meeting new people. The most pleasant surprise about cruising life was the abundance of other people doing the same thing and the information available to guide them! The cruising community is well-established along all the coasts we traveled - which is from Alaska south through the Panama Canal and north to the Chesapeake. Everywhere we went, we met a myriad of people from all walks of life on a variety of makes, sizes and types of boats exploring the world by water. We've made lifelong friends who enriched our lives. They became teachers to our son, tour guides, partners in exploration and party mates. To guide us all, there exists an entire network of books, websites, radio nets and magazines. Lonely? Not a chance! In fact, our social schedule gets so booked at times that we sneak off to an empty anchorage for some peace and quiet. Sitting in quiet anchorages is a good place to plan our adventures. We are cautious about planning too far into the future as we have changed our itinerary many times over the years to accommodate family events, new boats, or simply to cruise with new friends. We like staying in favorite places long enough to feel at home. Some places seem to have a vacuum hose attached to them that sucks us back again and again. Other venues are fine as one night stands. All I know is that I am no longer sitting on the shore, watching as others come and go on adventures of which I can only dream.
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Ann
(Annie) Bloomquist