Living Aboard a Boat Fulltime!

[MrMan]

Hugging the coast of the Pacific Northwest, then Canada, then the Aleutian Island, and then Japan, the wind and conditions work, seems better to me. It's slower, but just looking at ocean is kind of dull, but shoreline is more interesting. You could also go on land from time to time to shop or look around.

But I don't know how to sail. I was looking up courses for it a few months ago.

[WilliamSmith]

Hugging the coast of the Pacific Northwest, then Canada, then the Aleutian Island, and then Japan, the wind and conditions work, seems better to me. It's slower, but just looking at ocean is kind of dull, but shoreline is more interesting. You could also go on land from time to time to shop or look around.

But I don't know how to sail. I was looking up courses for it a few months ago.

My understanding from reading I've done so far is that the northern route is possible, but rougher and potentially dangerous even though it looks like you could cross less expanses of open ocean, and I think the usual weather patterns favor using that route to go the opposite direction.

I believe it's a stormier route, and cold weather (especially freezing and snowing) makes everything harder and more dangerous when sailing. Lots of big deep draft commercial vessels do that route and even some of them have problems, with a few dramatic wrecks even in recent years with all the useful new technology.

You have to try to dodge storm seasons in many places of the world (Caribbean has its infamous hurricanes, Japan its typhoons, etc), but I heard another risk of the southern route is getting into a sustained calm with too little wind, but otherwise warm water sailing is easier, calmer, and less dangerous, in general. On the map it looks like a much bigger journey across a wider expanse of ocean, but I think most cruisers prefer it over the northern option.

I'm still curious about learning enough to potentially be able to cross the oceans, and passionate about learning single-handed (solo) sailing, but ocean crossing definitely requires a lot of experience first, as well as a capable ship. You can get away with living on a simpler vessel that costs less to acquire and maintain if you know what region you'll stay in, so you could buy a boat that's only outfitted for coastal cruising in your area of interest.
I like the idea of acquiring a boat in either Caribbean or South East Asia (or near enough to sail there without a big daring ocean crossing).
But if I ever got bold enough to get a ship capable of crossing the oceans and actually sail both areas, then I'd probably need to learn how to do the crossing through the Panama canal.

[WilliamSmith]

If I were travelling the world on a boat, I'd want to carry guns.

Me too, but if there's any hassle-free ways to do that, I sure don't know what they are!

If I were travelling the world on a boat, I'd want to carry guns. Has the legal problem with carrying guns and going into port been solved yet?

If your guns are big enough, you have other ships with guns with you, and you represent a country that is a nuclear power with a powerful navy, you might be able to get away with it.

I think that's pretty on the mark even if you were kidding, but if you were a high-roller with a ship and crew (or a part of a larger crew) that could actually remain on the high seas, that might actually be a possibility, while you took a smaller boat into port and left your guns behind.

It's unrealistic to expect all nations to suddenly adopt a right to bear arms, especially for noncitizens coming into their country. Would you want armed foreigners coming into your country by ship?

On the high seas you only have to abide by the laws of the country your ship is flagged to. The problem arises in going into port. Some countries are reasonable, some aren't. Maybe there is a generic solution though.

Never say never, since there's always a million guys on the internet saying "No, that's impossible, you can't do that, blahblah" about stuff they don't actually know about, but from what I've researched so far there are tons of formalities which most port authorities expect you to follow respectfully, and port officials are known for showing little tolerance for incoming captains who don't abide by their rules and regulations.
Firearms are likely among the most stringently regulated items, and breaking the rules and laws of the country you're visiting can get your boat impounded, and get you imprisoned, or possibly executed (depending on what you tried to bring in undeclared).
I don't think there's too many countries outside the USA where you're legally allowed to carry concealed weapons, but if you find out otherwise, let us know!

Your question makes me wonder about non-lethal arms you could have on board though. The big container ships that are lightly crewed but known for getting attacked by armed pirates who approach with motorboats are sometimes equipped with water cannons that can blast the pirates off their smaller craft before they can board the defending ship. I have no idea what options there are for civilian craft in the 25-35' range though.

FYI to @Cornfed and any others who might be interested, I did some more research and talking to people and learned some interesting stuff about government rules and regulations while living aboard:

Basically, while you can have legal firearms aboard and many marinas are gun-friendly, not only is there no "solution" for carrying firearms on board to sail around the world (since you have to follow the rules of all port authorities), just being on a boat in US waters actually entails waiving much of your rights to any kind of privacy or freedom from unreasonable search and seizure (which supposedly we still have in our homes or landbound properties), even if firearms aren't involved at all.

I don't have direct experience with this stuff because I never do anything illegal and haven't happened to be searched much (just a few traffic stops with no citation), but I believe the US legal situation at the moment is that the 4th Amendment prohibits "unreasonable" searches and seizures in your home, unless a search warrant is issued.
(I say "at the moment," since jews on both the left and right wings will subvert and undermine every remaining Constitutional freedom still remaining and eliminate them, either on marxist SJW pretexts for the leftwing jews and/or "anti-terrorism" pretexts from the rightwing zionist/neocon jews, unless someone kicks their mutant asses first and stops them. Not sure what'll happen there, since I didn't expect SCOTUS to overturn Roe, for example, but it's safe to say we don't want to be counting on any great awakening.)
Anyway, apparently, this somewhat higher standard of protection does not apply to vehicles, which can be searched much more easily with no warrant, I guess, but the cops might need "probable cause."

But on boats, it's even less protected:
This info could theoretically be out of date, but I read SCOTUS apparently ruled that law enforcement don't even need probable cause to search boats and property on them per some case called US v. Villamonte-Marquez, which enabled them to basically authorize totally random searches whenever they want based on pretty much any suspicion. This also opens the door wide for them to do armed boardings and search you if you were a political target of a corrupt government, which is unlikely for most of us, but worth knowing.
Not only that, but there's also been a slippery slope making forfeiture laws worse and worse so that federal or sometimes state agencies can take away your property (including, obviously, your boat) even if no crime is ever shown to have been committed at all or you are even found completely innocent by a court ruling.
Those types of laws were apparently created for purpose of nabbing the property of drug lords or dealers or the like, but now have evolved into corrupt agencies stealing expensive property for comparatively petty offenses, or loopy cases where the conduct of third parties on that property were petty crimes. (For example, the classic case of if a parent let their college age kid party on the boat or something and one of his friends had a small amount of pot, theoretically could result in authorities confiscating and auctioning off your boat and pocketing the $$$'s for themselves, even if there was no wrongdoing on the owner's part.)

The "horror stories" happen but aren't commonplace, but fulltime cruisers have almost always been boarded and inspected multiple times by either the Coast Guard or some other law enforcement group. Sometimes they might just pull up alongside and ask to see papers and various safety equipment, but in many cases there's nothing stopping them from coming aboard and searching at gunpoint even on comparatively vague suspicion that you could theoretically be doing anything illegal (even if you're like me and never do anything that's remotely illegal).

This is one reason I'm leaning heavily in favor of the used market and trying to get an older boat and be skilled and knowledgeable about maintenance though. If I did get my boat confiscated for no good reason (since I'll never be doing anything illegal to justify having it seized), a boat I paid for $10-20k out of my own pocket is a hell of a lot less painful than if someone got into financing and had some yacht worth over $1million seized while they're still on the line to pay off the full sum.

I wasn't trying to be discouraging with any of that though, just redpill info.

[WilliamSmith]

Reading about world cruising routes and ports of call, I found some stuff that made me think of our friend here @Lucas88 with his love of Spanish language and Latin culture:
I am not going to go to Spain or these other Spanish influenced territories myself as far as I know, but there are some good sailing destinations there for sure.

The Canary Islands:
This was one I thought you might like.

Called by many names through its eventful history by many different people:
Elysian Fields
Fortunate Isles
Garden of the Hesperides
Islands of Eternal Spring
Enchanted Islands (so called by the Romans)



Before Columbus set off from here to discover the "new world," El Hierro was considered the end of the world...


Apparently after attacking some fierce early inhabitants known as Guanches, Spain managed to keep control of it, despite pirates, Dutch, and English all attacking it at various times.

In modern times, I guess it's an autonomous region of Spain, and the Canary islanders have rivalries of sorts between islands, and they also call the mainland Spanish "peninsulares" to distinguish themselves from the mainlanders, LOL, but Spanish is still the main language there.

It also said they're not too hot in summer ranging 70-84F, 21-29C, winter range 59-70.

Looks pretty damn nice!


Then of course there's Spain itself: Lucas88 went there and sounded like it was a great experience for him.

While I personally don't want to go to Europe anymore (especially not Western Europe), checking it out brings back memories of that strong sense of antiquity I got when I was in Italy a long time ago and walking around these ancient cities.
I saw some interesting seaside castles there that had that similar look.





Wherever this is is packed with tourists but looks pretty cool and has a pretty bay full of sailing yachts.

Edit: Looked it up, and it's a place called Tossa de Mar in Catalonia, but I have to stop here because I'm getting carried away again in my enthusiasm.

Damn though, that is an awesome pic!
Did you spend much time on the Spanish coast @Lucas88? Did you go to any of these particular places by any chance?

[Lucas88]

@WilliamSmith

I spent a lot of time on the east coast of Spain over the years although I don't think I've ever visited the places which you've cited.

When I was a little kiddy I had extended family who lived in Jávea (aka Xàbia) in the province of Alicante and my parents and I used to spend the summer there every year. From an early age I began to develop an intense love for Spanish culture. What is really interesting is that I could have ended up being a native speaker of Spanish had my parents decided to move us to Spain like the rest of our relatives. I would have acquired the language through immersion in childhood. That would have been awesome since Spanish is my predilect language and I'd like to hold native status rather than being just an advanced L2 speaker. But unfortunately my parents chose for us to remain in the UK (I personally blame their terribly wrong decision on possession at the hands of evil demons ). Anyway, I used to spend the summer in Jávea and would also visit nearby coastal towns such as Dénia, Benidorm and Alicante itself.

Years later, as a teenager, I visited certain places in Cataluña including Salou, La Pineda and Barcelona itself. This was before I began to learn Spanish. Also when I was 13 my family and I went on vacation to San Antonio, Ibiza; and when I was 15 we went to Gran Canaria.

A few more years later, at the age of 18, I was finally able to liberate myself from the evil of Anglo culture for the first time and enrolled in an immersive language school in the city of Valencia. I would eventually make Valencia my new home for years to come but at the same time I also visited a few other places in the Comunitat Valenciana such as the Roman city of Sagunto to the north and various beach towns such as Cullera to the south. I also went to the inland town of Buñol one year for the famous Tomatina.

All of the east coast of Spain is beautiful and includes many vibrant cities and idyllic picturesque towns. The east coast of Spain, the south of France and of course Italy are the best parts of Europe in my opinion. In fact the Mediterranean basin is the only part of Europe that I truly like. For me everywhere else in Europe is just meh. I'm a European (yes, I consider myself European and not British/English) who thinks that Europe is vastly overrated except for Mediterranean civilization which is one of the best to ever be created.

The Canary Islands are a really cool place, by the way. The Spanish spoken there is reminiscent of Caribbean Spanish and lacks the annoying ceceo (aka "lisp") of Peninsular Spanish and the women there are generally hotter than those of the mainland due to their Guanche admixture.

[MrMan]

Do they check you for Covid vaccines if you come into port on a ship?

[WilliamSmith]

@WilliamSmith

I spent a lot of time on the east coast of Spain over the years although I don't think I've ever visited the places which you've cited.

When I was a little kiddy I had extended family who lived in Jávea (aka Xàbia) in the province of Alicante and my parents and I used to spend the summer there every year. From an early age I began to develop an intense love for Spanish culture. What is really interesting is that I could have ended up being a native speaker of Spanish had my parents decided to move us to Spain like the rest of our relatives. I would have acquired the language through immersion in childhood. That would have been awesome since Spanish is my predilect language and I'd like to hold native status rather than being just an advanced L2 speaker. But unfortunately my parents chose for us to remain in the UK (I personally blame their terribly wrong decision on possession at the hands of evil demons ). Anyway, I used to spend the summer in Jávea and would also visit nearby coastal towns such as Dénia, Benidorm and Alicante itself.

Years later, as a teenager, I visited certain places in Cataluña including Salou, La Pineda and Barcelona itself. This was before I began to learn Spanish. Also when I was 13 my family and I went on vacation to San Antonio, Ibiza; and when I was 15 we went to Gran Canaria.

A few more years later, at the age of 18, I was finally able to liberate myself from the evil of Anglo culture for the first time and enrolled in an immersive language school in the city of Valencia. I would eventually make Valencia my new home for years to come but at the same time I also visited a few other places in the Comunitat Valenciana such as the Roman city of Sagunto to the north and various beach towns such as Cullera to the south. I also went to the inland town of Buñol one year for the famous Tomatina.

All of the east coast of Spain is beautiful and includes many vibrant cities and idyllic picturesque towns. The east coast of Spain, the south of France and of course Italy are the best parts of Europe in my opinion. In fact the Mediterranean basin is the only part of Europe that I truly like. For me everywhere else in Europe is just meh. I'm a European (yes, I consider myself European and not British/English) who thinks that Europe is vastly overrated except for Mediterranean civilization which is one of the best to ever be created.

The Canary Islands are a really cool place, by the way. The Spanish spoken there is reminiscent of Caribbean Spanish and lacks the annoying ceceo (aka "lisp") of Peninsular Spanish and the women there are generally hotter than those of the mainland due to their Guanche admixture.

Very interesting reminiscences, thanks @Lucas88.
That is also very interesting about the differences in Spanish vs the "peninuslares", and the Guanche admixture making the chicks hotter by your standards.

I think that second pic of Spain I posted was from Valencia:


I was friends with a Latina with the surname Valencia when I was a young teen, which I thought was a very nice sounding name. Unfortunately I was still too inexperienced and coming out of my shell at that time early in youth, so I didn't nail her. She wasn't your exact preferred type (more on the tall slender side, rather than the short and thick), but if I ever run into her again I'll try my luck getting into her pants and screwing her brains out to make up for lost time.

[WilliamSmith]

Do they check you for Covid vaccines if you come into port on a ship?

Yeah, the exact rules all vary by the nation state in question where you're going to port, but in general they will want to see all sorts of papers about what vaccines you had, and all sorts of other things to check you out that you're not bringing in anything undeclared.

Even pre-covid, because of both smugglers (drugs, human trafficking, and more) and the risk of weird viruses or non-native organisms and critters potentially invading via sea ports, I believe the level of scrutiny is commonly much higher for boats than it is for people who fly into a nation via the airlines.

That doesn't mean you need to take the clotshots to go to every port, though, unless specific vaccines are mandated by law in the nation in question.

Hong Kong and Macau where I intend to sail to sometime in my life, for example, I believe are still fully closed to any one who is not vaxxed with documents to prove it, so I couldn't go there at this time, but many other countries (including most of the South East Asian ones) have no such mandates.

Like I warned about a few posts back though, if you want freedom from officious interference and being boarded by port authorities or ocean going police, coast guard, etc, there's a chance boat living is likely not going to agree with you very much.

Some cruisers also warned me that some port officials will sometimes get miffed at you if they think you aren't dressed in a way that shows them adequate respect, and might therefore cause problems.

[Lucas88]

Very interesting reminiscences, thanks @Lucas88.
That is also very interesting about the differences in Spanish vs the "peninuslares", and the Guanche admixture making the chicks hotter by your standards.

Even though I've lived in Spain the most and have a deep appreciation for the great Madre Patria, I've always overwhelmingly preferred most forms of Latin American Spanish, especially those of Mexico and Colombia, although I'm starting to discover new varieties of Central American Spanish too through my quest to watch at least three movies from each Latin American country and I like what I've seen thus far.

Peninsular Spanish is really easy to understand for me and even has a certain elegance but I don't like the lisp sound at all and never use it when I speak Spanish unless I'm impersonating a Spaniard or just doing it to make my Mexican girl laugh. The famous lisp is used throughout most of mainland Spain although there are regions in the south where it isn't used such as Andalucía and it's completely absent from Canarian Spanish too. It is believed that southern dialects of Spanish and also Canarian Spanish had the most impact on the formation of the Spanish varieties in the Americas with Canarian Spanish being extremely similar to Caribbean Spanish. There's a misconception that the lisp constitutes proper Spanish pronunciation but in reality it was a relatively late development in the phonology of a certain prestige dialect of Spanish. In the earliest known forms of Spanish the "soft c" was pronounced "ts" like the z in pizza and so parecer would have been pronounced "paretser". In truth both ceceo and seseo are later developments. I therefore have no problem speaking without the lisp even in Spain even if people think I sound "Latino".

The only kind of Spanish I don't like is the Rioplatense dialect spoken in Argentina and Uruguay. It has a different intonation to other forms of Spanish and sounds a bit faggy in my view.

I think that second pic of Spain I posted was from Valencia:

That photo doesn't look like anywhere along the coast of Valencia, at least not near the city. I'm really not sure where that is. I even did an image search and am still none the wiser.

This is the main beach of Valencia, La Malvarrosa:








Can you believe that I used to live just three streets away from that beach?

[WilliamSmith]

Last post until I have to leave tomorrow for a trip and won't be back to the forum until 9/10ish:

I have got every book I can get my hands on about single-handed sailing, but was very pleased to see that one of these was written by none other than the old sea salt Tristan Jones.
"One Hand for Yourself, One For the Ship."


Has the well-read @gsjackson , or any one else here, ever read Tristan Jones by any chance? Just occurred to me you might get a kick out of him.

Most of his books are very entertaining accounts of his own sailing adventures, I believe most single-handed in a monohull or trimaran.
The Incredible Voyage and Saga of a Wayward Sailor are two famous titles off the top of my head, but he wrote quite a few more.


My favorite fiction author Jack Vance is also an experienced mariner himself, once in the merchant marine. That just occurred to me lately after I got serious about sailing, though I have been a Vance reader long before then.

I used to be into this computer game when I was a lad in the 1990s where you were captain of a space merchant vessel and could pretty much do whatever you wanted, and Vance wrote a book very late (I think his 90s) where he was still razor sharp and hilarious, called "Ports of Call" appealing to the same fantasy.
Now I am going to get to live something a little like that life eventually myself, but will ideally try to emphasize the bodice ripper romance novel elements more than the parts about finagling and fighting off pirates.

Still not sure if I'll ever have the cajones and inclination to outfit a single-handed rig capable of crossing the oceans, or if I'll just cruise about in some really nice spot like the Caribbean or South East Asia and leave the circumnavigation and stormcraft to the true men of the sea...

Time will tell, but maybe someday I'll be braving this kind of wave and storm action, as well as discovering the most expeditious routes to get the local amorous women at various ports of call from the waterside bars back to the marina and down belowdecks with me on board my boat where they can unleash their white-hot uninhibited feminine passions to the fullest in my company:

[WilliamSmith]

One last thing on the positive side, since I know a lot of us who want to "Get out of dodge" and get Happier Abroad are broke-asses (well, I'm not anymore, but certainly not rich either) is that I originally figured you'd need to plunk down at least $30,00-$50,000 or something like that (or use financing to get something in that range or higher).
That sounded doable in theory, and well worth it (especially if I sold the bit of RE I still own), but it turns out there's way more options if you're willing to also invest time into learning how to do a lot of repair and maintenance stuff yourself + be patient enough to look on the used markets for awhile for bargains:
It's surprising how some nice fiberglass or steel monohull sailboats under 30 feet long can be had surprisingly cheap sometimes.
A few concrete examples:
There's a book I have whose exactly title slips my mind, but it is about bargain hunting for a boat to live on.
It give examples of types of of boats under 30 feet that can often be found between $10-20k, but sometimes lower if they are fixer-up "projects."
I remember a story of one guy who even snagged a fixer-upper Tartan 27 in Panama for literally a few hundred dollars. A few thousand dollars for a bargain fixer-upper is more common, but they're out there. (In extreme cases, once in awhile a fixer-upper is even given away free if the owner wants to get out from under its upkeep cost, e.g. if it's from a landlocked owner who wants to get out of paying marina or whatever other storage costs, insurance, etc.)
A solid little model called "Eastward Ho 24" was another example, which its name carrying a slightly unfortunate double meaning here in the age past gangster rap's rise in popularity, but still an example of a quality boat that might be snagged for under $10k.

[glanmit]

I lived on the boat for about two years. There are many things you get tired of and just want to have a normal house like everyone else.
At the moment i got my own place and started to look at Select Home Warranty reviews on this website in order to protect myself from different unexpected disasters. Of course would be much better if nothing like that happens at all.

[MrMan]

I lived on the boat for about two years. There are many things you get tired of and just want to have a normal house like everyone else.

I talked to a couple who lived on a docked boat in Hawaii while saving up for a place to live. It seemed okay for a married couple. I didn't see the boat. I think it was probably a small yacht. My dad thought about buying a house boat in a canal in Florida when I was a kid, for $1000. The owner needed to sell it. I went on it and liked the idea of living there. My mom was scared of the idea of one of the kids drowning. My dad didn't jump on it and someone else bought it. This thing was like a big block of a boat, not something nimble you could ski with.

[WilliamSmith]

I lived on the boat for about two years. There are many things you get tired of and just want to have a normal house like everyone else.

I talked to a couple who lived on a docked boat in Hawaii while saving up for a place to live. It seemed okay for a married couple. I didn't see the boat. I think it was probably a small yacht. My dad thought about buying a house boat in a canal in Florida when I was a kid, for $1000. The owner needed to sell it. I went on it and liked the idea of living there. My mom was scared of the idea of one of the kids drowning. My dad didn't jump on it and someone else bought it. This thing was like a big block of a boat, not something nimble you could ski with.

That's very understandable to be concerned about the kids going overboard. I'd be concerned about that, but moreso the pirates, and the fact that it's a huge PIA to own firearms on a boat (which I'd want to do to be prepared to fight off pirates and thieves, etc).

But as for the family side: There's actually whole books written by live-aboard families about how they live and why they like that lifestyle.
Many people really like it, and they said it's helped their children become more self-sufficient and resourceful, and also kept the family closer together.
I don't have any xp with that myself since I don't have any kids yet.
I can say a lot of time aboard a small boat (e.g. 25-30 foot monohull) with a highly emotional feisty broad but only one "head" (marine toilet) can be a bit of a challenge, but well worth the effort IMO.