Living Aboard a Boat

Lior, Goq, since I’m new here, I don’t know if you’re being factious or serious. So, I’m going to assume the latter.

I do all of my own maintenance, as most plumbers wouldn’t know how to service the piping aboard a boat as it can get fairly complicated.

Goq, I use the ship’s wheel to steer her. If you mean how do I keep her kosher, well that’s a little harder. As I said we daven aboard when we can’t get to a shul. Once, after walking for over 8 miles to get to a shul one Shabbos (I know- far beyond the 2000 paces), I was talking to the Rabbi after services. He asked why we didn’t ride bicycles. I thought, “Ride bicycles? Is that allowed?” He assured me it was. Since he was a Chabad Rabbi, I figured he would know. He did caution us that we could not repair the bikes, so make sure they were in good condition before erev Shabbos. So whenever we’re away from our home berth, we locate a shul (if there’s one around), within at least bicycle distance.

The lights are on timers that activate just before Shabbos. Our galley (kitchen) is dairy, and most of out meals are dairy. When we do eat meat, it’s prepared on a covered gas grill that attaches to our forward railing. It also has a burner, so we can also make stews, chilli, and soups. We can also turn the flame down low and it functions as a blech. We have a large stock pot that we wash our meat dishes in so we don’t violate our dairy sink. We also fry whole chickens and turkeys in it. (I did mention I was from the South, didn’t I? We fry a lot of turkeys down here.)

And all of our doors have mezuzahs on them. If we’re anchored offshore, I and my sons liked to daven out in the open on our upper deck. Interestingly, we’ve had a number of boats come alongside and ask if they could daven with us. (We never got enough for a minyan though, except when we had a party back at the boat. You know any Yidden to ever turn down free food?) 😉

And, well, that’s our home. We’ve lived aboard her for over 20 years now, and we almost can’t remember any different.We have two staterooms aboard, one for us, and one for the boys. (Well, just one boy now. The other’s in college now. But we do have a new baby daughter who’s less than a year old. I’m 52, and my wife’s 48. Let me tell you, we weren’t expecting this. So we call her “Our Little Surprise Package”. When she graduates high school, I’ll be hitting my 70’s. OY!) :0

Oomis, Crazybrit, are you addressing me? I assure you this is true, I do indeed live aboard a boat. I don’t know why that’s so hard to understand. Are frum Jews not allowed to live on boats? I don’t get many chances to speak to other religious Jews that I haven’t already schmoozed to death (except in our annual boat trip around the great American loop). I though I could find a like-minded soul here. Forgive me for assuming so, and I’ll bother you no more. If you weren’t addressing me, then again forgive my assumptions.

Zahavasdad, I’m afraid I’ve never been up the Hutchinson, although I have passed by it I believe. In our loop we come from the Gulf, up the Mississippi (or the Tombigbee to the Mississippi), through the Chicago ship channel to Lake Michigan, to Lake Huron, through the Welland Canal to Lake Erie, to the Erie Canal to the Hudson River, down the Hudson to New York where we pick up the Inter-Coastal-Waterway (ICW), all the way down the east coast to Florida, around Florida and back to the Gulf. Sometimes we make the trip the other way, and other times we take the Ohio River, or head up the Missouri as far as it goes. We do this at least every other year, and sometimes once a year. It’s sort of a working vacation for my wife. She’s a luthier, and she takes orders for instruments as we go along.

Lior: Yes, I’ve read a good number of them. I’ve got them on my computer. (Not much room for hardbound books aboard. The best investment we ever made was for a 30TB hard drive that we copy everything onto. (Because we read a lot and listen to music all the time, and analog books, movies, pictures and music take up a LOT of room.)

Golfer: Well, living near those places are nice, I’ll admit. But nothing can beat the view I wake up to every morning, or being rocked to sleep by the waves at night. We’ve managed to keep kosher all the time we’ve been aboard. Oh, and we’re always floating in a kosher mikvah in one form or another..(It’s certainly a natural water source.)

Funnybone: I retired from the Navy after 30 years of service as a mustang Lt.Commander. (That’s an enlisted man that advanced to officer.) Right now, I’m a free-lance graphic designer. I think I mentioned earlier that my wife’s a luthier. (She builds and repairs stringed instruments of all types. From mandolins to bouzoukis, from violins to double bases. We have examples of these hung all about the boat (and had a heck of a time keeping the kids off of them when they were little). When we’re out on an excursion she shows them to folks and takes orders that she’ll build in her shop. We have a permanent home berth that we purchased several years ago where she keeps her workshop.

And yes our kids were home-schooled for a bit. But being kids in a military family, they were also bounced about from school to school, too. But we don’t really have to worry about that too much now. One son’s a sophomore in college, and the other is a senior in high school. Our daughter’s 10 month’s old, so we’ve got a few years before we have to worry about her. (We never thought we’d have to worry about midnight feedings at our age.)

The best place to vacation? That’s a tall order. In our opinion is anyplace on the water of course. 🙂 You can get an entirely different view of places from the water. There are some place I’ve seen on the Missouri river where sheer cliffs tower over the boat and fall straight to the water. Other places on little tributaries of the Ohio ricer where the river closes in on each side of you and you can’t hear any road noise or other sounds of people and you can imagine the river as it was before any people had set foot there. One thing we do is find out where tourist season is at it’s height in an area where we’re going and make sure we go there when it’s over. Since we live way down below the Mason-Dixon line, we go north in the summer. You might laugh, but this summer it got up to 106deg. here at 100% humidity with a heat index of 112deg. And that temperature lasts for months.

Actually, some of the nicest little towns we stopped in were along the Erie canal. Upstate New York reminds me a lot of New England. When folks there heard my southern accent (which I can switch off at will) they were even nicer and went out of their way to be accommodating. Something which does NOT happen in the city. When I used my southern accent there, most people automatically subtracted 30 I.Q. points. One fellow even offered to hail a cab for me stating, “You’ll never figure it out for yourself.” What? I think the most condescending attitude of all came from our fellow Jews. Most just couldn’t grasp the idea that there were Jews here in the south. (The shul in the town where I berth my boat has been here almost 200 years. It’s true that most of the orthodox left during the depression, but there are still plenty of reform and conservative congregations.) I think they figured I should be dressed in a tin jacket, bib overalls and clodhoppers. One yutz going so far as to say you’ll have to explain this to your husband later during the kiddush after services. Again, what? Yes folks, there are rednecks here in the south, but guess what? I’ve found just as many in my travels up north. The only difference I’ve found is the accent. (Sorry about that. My wife is reading over my shoulder and thumbing me in the ribs and told me to mention that. 🙂 ) Actually, most of the folks I’ve met up north have been really great. One funny thing though. When I graduated high school, and before I went in the Navy, I had a job as a telephone market researcher. (We invited folk down to give their opinions on new products for money. Or we conducted research over the phone. When I used a flat mid-western accent I didn’t get near as many opinions completed or confirmed invites as I did when I used my southern accent when I was callung folks in northern areas. I’ve always wondered why.