Living on a boat, done right, can be the very essence of living the simple life.  We make do with less of everything from food (fridge too small) to clothing (no closet space) to knick-knacks and frick-frack which we simply don’t have space to display/store.  We also consume much less than the average four person family, simply because we don’t have an unlimited supply.  For instance water; I have to haul all our water to the boat in jugs during the winter.  Because of that, I keep a very close eye on every drop that comes out of our taps and can really turn into the soup-nazi if I think for a second that my water is being wasted.  (NO WATER FOR YOU!!!) Our electricity is limited to 30amps during the summer and 60amps in the winter.  With that limited supply, we run our boat – heating, hot water, lights, TV’s, computers, radio, etc.  When we try to draw more than what we have purchased, we pop a breaker.  At that point I know that if I really want to heat up that slice of pizza in the microwave, I’m going to have to turn something else off.

Last week, I was surfing around looking for other live aboard blogs and came across one that I had not seen before called Sailing, Simplicity and the Pursuit of Happiness.  Teresa is the owner of the blog and what is outstanding about her is that she is one of the few single females that participate in our way of life.  There are lots of single guys living on boats, lots of couples and many families like ours but a single woman living on a boat is a rarity.  She is a teacher, so her blog is very well written and a real joy to read.  Be sure to visit her blog and say hello.

Teresa’s various blog posts on Voluntary Simplicity sent me down the road of thinking about how we live our lives in an increasingly complex and connected world.  As I described above, we are already living the simple life compared to most young families, but I still wonder and wish for simpler times.  Is it possible that we could make do with less?  Why is everything so complicated and convoluted?  Do I really need …. (insert widget, commitment or stuff here)?

A couple of weeks ago the power went out in the middle of a dark and stormy night.  (It really was a dark and stormy night!)  I discovered one of the limitations of relying on shore power for our heat – when the power is out, there is no heat.  The next morning I sat down and made a list of what I would need to do to become more independent and less at the mercy of the local power company.  I came up with several options to make and store my own electricity, create my own heat and generally go ‘off grid.’  However, as I looked at that list, I very quickly saw two things.

1.  Everything was going to cost money – and not just a little … a lot!

2.  Each idea involved designing, installing and working with another ‘system’ on the boat.

Systems are, by nature, complex – that is why they are called systems.  So, does adding new systems really make my life more simple or am I adding a level of complexity that in turn adds to the total load on my life?  Does it make sense to become more independent by becoming more complex?  I’m not sure the trade off is worth it.  As it stands now, it is far easier for me to make my yearly donation to the power company and simply endure the occasional power failure than it is to set up alternative energy sources.  So we remain plugged in.

Now lets get down to the basic question:  What is Simplicity?

The simple life for me is a paradox.  The less you have, the more you can do.  Does that make sense?  Let me ask this: if you didn’t have to take care of all the crap that you’ve accumulated in your life, would you have more time to do what you really want to do?  Another way to state the paradox is: fewer possessions equal greater potential for a richer life.  I don’t know who first said this, but it has been said many times before, “If you don’t control how much stuff you have, your stuff will control you.”  Stuff, be it gadgets, or so called necessities will suck up your time and suck the life out of you.  The converse of this is: it is the simple things in life that are often the most fulfilling.  A simple meal with your family, a good book on a rainy day, a walk in the park, time with friends, playing with your kids; these are the things that are peaceful and fulfilling.  These are the things that bring joy, or as the French say, “joie de vivre ” (joy of life.)   If you are committed to your stuff, be they time commitments, toys, gadgets or other miscellaneous stuff, you lose the time to spend on the simple things that do bring you joy.  It is your priorities that will control your actions, make your priority the simple things and leave the ‘stuff’ behind.  So, for me, simplicity is concentrating on less.  Less of everything, leaving time for the simple things that bring joy.

On the boat here we’ve tried many strategies to control the ‘stuff.’  Of course, as already mentioned, we are limited by our space constraints, but we still try to stop the boat from overflowing.  One of our favorite policies is ‘one in, one out.’  That means whenever we want to bring something new on board, something else has to go.  Now, I will be perfectly honest here, I am the worst culprit breaking this rule, but it is something that helps slow the flow.

A great book that I just finished about simplicity is called The Power of Less: The Fine Art of Limiting Yourself to the Essential…in Business and in Life by Leo Babauta.  It is an easy read full of practical ideas and instruction on how to slow down and reduce the stuff and commitments in your life.  He also shows that once you drop the non-essential stuff, you can get so much more done.  See, there’s the paradox again, less stuff – get more done.  My favorite question that he asks is, “What’s the alternative to information and task overload?  Must we follow the example of Thoreau, and build a cabin in the woods, shutting ourselves off from society and modern technology? “  As much as I enjoy the thought of a Thoreauean life, I do enjoy being plugged into the web, running water, electricity and the horseless carriage.  So he proposes a middle ground, one that reduces but does not eliminate everything.  I really enjoyed the book and got a lot out of it.  Highly recommended.

Well, that’s it – my litlle ‘self-help’ post.  It works for me.  Don’t forget to visit Sailing, Simplicity and the Pursuit of Happiness.

We have been having some amazingly cold weather here for about a week. -20 deg C (-4 F) on and off for about 5 days. With the wind chill it has been as cold at -40 C (-40 F.)  On days like that, even the geese have had the good sense to stay in bed. The back end of the boat is now frozen in solid with ice about 20 cm (8″) thick back there.  The front of the boat is still clear from running the bubbler.  Not sure how much help the bubbler is right now, but I might be able to melt out the back end of the boat with it and have the boat floating again.  I really don’t like seeing my outdrives frozen in as I am afraid of what damage might be done.  Howver, there is little I can do with this right now – so I will not worry about it … (now, if I could only convince my mind to stop worrying … lol.)

And tonight we are getting more. This is the current Weather Warning posted for the Toronto Area:

Warnings
City of Toronto
12:42 PM EST Saturday 17 January 2009
Snowfall warning for City of Toronto issued

15 centimetres of snowfall beginning this afternoon.

An approaching low pressure system will result in widespread snow for much of southern Ontario today, tonight and Sunday. Snow has already begun in southwestern Ontario and will spread eastward throughout the afternoon and evening. Current indications are that the greater Toronto area and regions surrounding it will receive the highest snowfall amounts, expected to be near 15 centimetres. The snow is expected to begin in these regions by late this afternoon and continue through the night before tapering off Sunday morning. The snowfall may be heavy at times and combined locally with blowing snow, resulting in occasionally very poor visibilities.

Here are a couple of photo’s – the sleeping geese and a snow storm blowing in off the lake on a -25 C morning from last week.

Geese stayed in bed this cold morning.

Snow storm blowing in off the lake on a cold winter morning.

A couple of days ago we were contacted by someone from California who wanted to interview us for a report she was doing on Mobile Living. Because of some rather unscrupulous reporters we normally don’t do interviews, but because of the topic and … well, I really don’t know why, we decided to oblige. So, stay tuned for what comes of that.

The article is also going to feature another family who is mobile who is living in their R.V. You can check them out at Cage Free Family. Reading through their site got me thinking about the mobile life. After going through their story I started to surf other R.V and camper van sites. Some are families – mostly in R.V.’s and some are singles – both male and female, mostly in vans. After reading a bunch of sites on various mobile lives, I realized that there was a pattern in the writing. The first 10 or 15 posts tend to excitedly describe ‘life on the road!’ All the wild times, beautiful sites and close calls that are the draw to this life style. They post almost everyday, describing every little detail ala Kerouac – not realizing their mindless, mundane, monotony is kind of … boring. Then the posts become more sporadic… and less detailed. The trumped up edge seems to be gone and exquisite meals of canned beans on pasta while looking out on an ocean view becomes Ramen noodles (sometimes drained, sometimes not) in a Publix parking lot. Many of them, especially the younger ones have begun to tire of ‘the life.’ I would say by about 6 months in, they seem to hit the wall; a continental divide. Many, if not most, don’t make it all the way over that final hump. They slide back home to their parents or old jobs or just their old local stomping grounds … local hero’s for breaking out, but wounded and broken for not really breaking free. They revel in the recall of their freedom on the road, regaling friends and strangers with stories of their bravery and exploits, preferring to forget the reasons why they quit. A mobile life is not like a fixed life. It requires a different mindset, it operates with a different set of rules, it is … a different game. Some figure it out, some don’t. It’s hard to describe.

Those that do make it over the hump change too. No longer occupied by what they are doing, seeing or feeling they become travelogues – story tellers – seeing, interpreting and reporting on life and humanity. You no longer read about how good life is on the road; they don’t have to say it, you can just feel it in their stories. Posts are somewhat regular but separated by time and by distance. Descriptions are of life patterns – the everyday, with a twist. The swirling emotions of leaving the stability of a fixed address are gone, replaced by the wonders of a way of living that develops with time and experience. They are more or less immune to the shock that the mobile life causes others to feel. Instead they wonder back, in the same way, at those who seem to want to uproot, but don’t.

As I look back over this blog, I see the same trend. Except I never really let go; still with a terrestrial job, a slip we call home and a local mailing address. Yep, we are living the mobile life in a kind of fixed way – a blend of both worlds, but not really part of either. Are we in limbo, a proverbial no-fly-zone, or are we part of a 3rd category? Not sure. All I know is that we ARE truly free from the fixed life in our minds, that is, we think free, just not in our circumstances.

Those that don’t break free; that don’t follow their dreams and what excites them tend to become the sheeple of the world … and there are a lot of them. Somehow proud of having a good job and a nice house, without realizing that the majority of the people around them have good jobs and nice houses too. They’ve drunk the cool-aide. They succomed to the lie that this is what life is supposed to be like: school, college, work, house, family, kids, kids off to college, retire, get sick, die … maybe throw a couple of holidays to Europe or a Cancun cruise in there, but that is the normal North American life. Reminds me of that song:

And did they get you to trade
Your heros for ghosts?
Hot ashes for trees?
Hot air for a cool breeze?
Cold comfort for change?
And did you exchange
A walk on part in the war
For a lead role in a cage?
…
We’re just two lost souls
Swimming in a fish bowl,
Year after year,
Running over the same old ground.
What have we found?
The same old fears.
Wish you were here.

(P.F. – Wish You Were Here.)

So, if that’s what you want, (what you really, really want) … then go for it. Follow the herd. But, if/when you realize that happiness is less about your state and more about what you are doing, then … Break free from the fear. Break the pattern. Do something!

I suppose that most would consider our little family to be fairly computer literate. We have high speed internet on the boat which we access with 3 laptops and one Internet Tablet. We run a couple of personal blogs (WeLiveOnABoat.com, LifeAboard.ca) and two comercial sites (NeighboursAppliance.com, ScrapScene.com.) We use things like Skype (long distance phone calls) all the time, do our banking on-line and plan our days and lives with on-line tools such as Google Calendar and Remember the Milk. We use xDrive for our on-line backups.

I’ve been asked several times how get get internet on the boat. We have used 3 different internet suppliers here.

The marina where we are docked have a company that supplies wireless internet (for a fee) to the boaters in the bay. Their speeds are really good, especially the 2 meg uploads but their signal fades badly in various places around the marina including our winter slip here. I can use their access point in the front of the boat, but not in the back.

I also have an ‘air card’ that plugs into my laptop that I use primarily on the road at work. The speeds are Ok but not good enough for Skype – perfectly fine for basic surfing and email though. We use this connection when our other supplier is down.

Finally, our main internet supplier is a wireless modem unit called Rogers Portable Internet. The speeds are good to great for downloads but uploads can occasionally be a bit slow. It works good for Skype voice but can occasionally drag a bit on Skype video. We have it shared with a wireless router so that we can all be on the internet at the same time. (The Boy even has my old laptop which he uses to watch Bob the Builder, etc. videos on YouTube. He can pull his laptop out, turn it on and surf (via bookmarks) to his YouTube videos. He’s 3 yrs old…)

Others have expressed concerns about the moist environment on a boat being bad for computers. We have not experienced any problems with this while on board unless you count dropping a water bottle on one of the laptops shorting out the keyboard – oops. For the most part, laptops today seem to be fairly durable. The one I am writing on right now is 2 yrs old and travels with me in my service truck everyday. That means vibration, dust and constantly being slapped around and it is still working fine. Of course, tomorrow it will quit! I guess what I am saying is that we’ve have had good experiences with laptops on our boats.

There has been a couple of hiccups with the new blogging platform.  Thanks to Marc I found out my feeds were not working.  I think they are fixed now – I think…  You might have to unsubscribe and then resubscribe to get them working for you.

Subscribe away – let me know if there are any other problems.

Thanks.

We moved to our summer slip this afternoon. It’s good to be finally moved over here. It will be darker at night as we are away from the building plus we should have less bird poo everywhere for the same reason.

Tonight there was a beautiful sunset. We did not get to see much of it though because The Boy was blocking the view. Nice posterior…

Many thanks to all those of you who put in your 2 cents about our ‘crossroads’ issue. We are a little further along the path of deciding… but are not yet ready to reveal what our plans are. For now – it’s summertime and I live on a boat!!!

The mast is finally back up (I had taken it down for the winter to do some repairs) and everything is working the way it should. I’ve put on the boom and the mainsail – but still have to pick up the jib from the sail repair shop where it spent the winter. We plan to be sailing this weekend.

We have not yet moved to our summer slip which is a little further out from the main building, but plan to move at the latest this weekend. More likely Thursday.

Stay tuned for a review of the The 4 – Hour Workweek by Tim Ferriss.

Reminds me of a Bible verse: “Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.” Proverbs 22:6

Nice to know my boat will be clean when I get home from work today!

Our local Ma and Pa swan now have 7 little swans (signets? I have been corrected – cygnets) to take care of.

The boy loves feeding them – plus it is a way to get rid of our old mouldy bread. The swans seem to love it.

“Please sir, may I have some more?”

OK – to answer a couple of questions first…

No, the boat did not sink…
I wish we were out on the lake sailing…
My not writing anything for a while does not mean that I do not like you…(get some self-esteem buddy!)

I think those were the main ones.

Life on board the S/V Strathgowan is good. We have finally shed our winter shell and have got most everything ready for summer. All that is left is for the mast to go up and some small odds and ends. To make excuse for why I’ve not written, I have to refer you to my wife’s blog ScrapScene. (I’ll explain more on that in a minute.) I’ve been writing, stumbling, SEO’ing, etc. – all the things that one must do to get a blog up and running. All this takes time and kind of sucks my writing well dry. But, I’m back! – for now…

We have decided to stay at our winter marina for the summer this year. In the past we’ve moved between two marinas for the summer and winter. However, everything is just closer to the marina where we winter. The grocery store is just across the road, the mail box is a 5 min walk and there are lots of little restaurants within shouting distance. Never thought that I would want to move closer to the action, but here we are. We will move to a different dock which is further out away from the building which should give us some summer breezes and get us away from the bustle of the marina itself. However, the dock is not yet open due to repairs that are still taking place from the wind storm this past Feb. It really did a number on the docks here and the repairs have been going on for several weeks now.

I still have to pick up my jib from the sail repair shop where it spent the winter getting a couple of seams repaired. I really should learn how to do these types of repairs myself – but then I would not be able to store my sails at the repair shop. It will be nice to finally get the boat out on the lake and sailing again – hopefully this coming week.

OK – on to other news.

My wife (A) is pregnant again. She’s due in the fall and that means that means we’ve got about 5 months to figure out what we are going to do regarding our living arrangements. Is an Alberg 30 big enough for 4 people? Ha – some would say that it is not big enough for 2! I don’t mind living in a small boat (which is kind of weird, ’cause I’m a big guy) but A is not too enthralled with the idea of adding another person to our already cramped space. So, what to do…?

We are heading toward a major crossroads in our lives. This fall we will have the opportunity (or necessity) to go in any of several directions. Here are the options that we are considering:

• Status Quo – stay where we are on the Alberg 30. Just make it work.
• Buy a bigger boat to live on.
• Move on land – i.e. buy another house, rent an apartment, etc. (actually, we are not really considering this, but it is an option.)
• Move to another part of the country – buy a house, rent an apartment, find another job and generally rejoin the ‘normal’ life.
• Move all our stuff off the boat, pack up our Boler camping trailer and head out on the road – visiting my family in Manitoba for a while then heading south for the rest of the winter. (My personal favorite.)

There is a common thread throughout this list of options – that is: money. How does one finance: a new boat – a new house – a move – or a mobile lifestyle?

Enter ScrapScene.

If, (and it is a big if) we could generate an income from ScrapScene – an income that is large enough to support any of the above options, then our decision becomes one of choice. Because ScrapScene is a web-based blog we could conceivably operate it anywhere that we have access to the internet. That would enable us to live a Mobile Life – as long as we could tap into the Internet at regular intervals. When, at any time in the past, was this an option for a young family? Especially a family that is not supported by a trust-fund or old money. Never. The old terrestrial model of work and life is changing. There are options to those who want to reach out and take them.

While A. and I have been developing our designed life for well over a year now, a book came out recently that really put down in black and white a prescription that shows what A. and I have been working on. The book is called The 4 – Hour Workweek by Tim Ferriss. It is a wonderfully inspiring read and really shows how a mobile life and a life free of a ‘job’ is more possible than ever in this day of technological advancement. I will write more about Tim’s book in another post.

But for now – that is where we are at. Working hard on hardly working. Ok friends and family … what are your thoughts, ideas or comments on this? Let us have it!!