more on living aboard.....

Yeah so there's the space thing, the water thing, and then there's other little adjustments to get used to. Some people say that it must be kind of cold in the winter. It's a little bit cool maybe, but I wouldn't say it's cold. It's true that most boats aren't insulated, being designed for use in the warmer months. Besides that it is a little drafty for sure. I insulated some of the windows and hatches with some foam panels, and others I put up some of that clear shrink wrap window insulation - to stop the drafts somewhat - and then got some heavy insulated drapes too. It's really kind of cozy though I admit I haven't really seen a deep freeze yet. I think the coldest it's been so far is about 32 or so. We'll see what it's like when I get home at the end of January, when I expect we'll get some serious cold snaps.

Some people build frames and make a plastic tent to protect them from the wind and snow, and they get some radiant heat from the sun with this too. I didn't have time to get that all together this year, time sneaked up on me pretty fast - what else is new?

My heat is a couple of electric heaters that I bought out of a marine hardware catalog. they seem to work well. My electric bill is a little high though, but considering how reasonable the winter dockage rate is, I think it's not too bad. One thing that helps is that I'm only there half the time, and work the other half - three weeks home and three weeks away - so it's pretty doable.

I paid $1470.00 for dockage from Nov. 1 to May 1. the electricity is probably going to come to another $700 or so - maybe a little more. So even if the whole total is $2500 for six months, that's pretty good i think for six months of housing in Boston. I haven't asked many other liveaboards how they feel about the whole thing, but I'd bet many of them would probably agree with me on this: If I could afford to keep a boat and maintain a house or apartment, then I'd rather live on land in the winter. I don't have a lot of money, and I love boating, so this is how I make it happen. In the warmer months, its great. Lots of people around the docks, long days cruising around the harbor, or anchored out somewhere. What's not to like? But in the winter it can be a little bit much. ~ Al