Are we crazy?

By Mike Jastrzebski

By we I mean those of us who live on boats. I started thinking about this after reading Christine's blog Friday about the space she writes in. It's small. It's crowded. It's cramped. So is my writing space. In fact, those three words–small, crowded and cramped apply to every aspect of living on a small boat.

Take the head for example. Our head is about the size of a porta-potti. Not only does this space serve as the head, but it's also the shower. And talking about the shower, we carry just 65 gallons of water, so when we're cruising Mary and I use about two gallons of water each to shower.

Then there's our sleeping quarters. We live on a 36-foot boat so there is no bedroom as such. We sleep on the front v-berth. This sleeping area is as wide as a king size bed at the top and about as wide as a baby crib mattress where our feet rest. We have to climb up three feet to get into the berth and we can barely sit up without hitting our heads. We have friends who live on 42-50 foot boats and the sleeping situation is a little better, but only marginally.

Finally there's the storage, or maybe I should say the lack of storage. It drives me nuts that whenever I want something it's hidden behind two or three things that I don't need. One of the reasons I bought a Kindle and plan to buy another one for Mary is that I no longer have to store books on board. We have a lot of things stored in the trunk and the back seat of our car and I cringe to think about fitting those things on board when we take off next spring.

Don't get me wrong now; there are a lot of great things about living on a boat. Beautiful sunrises, great beaches, like-minded friends who may also be crazy.

So what do you think? Are we crazy? Just a little different? Or maybe we're just adventurous?