Living on a boat is not at all like I expected.
I moved onto the boat thinking it was going to be like glamping (glamorous camping!) but it’s so much more than that – let me explain…
After reading this blog post, I want you to be able to visualise what it would be like to live on your own boat and have a really clear expectation of what it would be like so that if and when you choose to move onboard your own boat, there won’t be any nasty surprises.
Small Space
First and foremost, a boat is MUCH smaller than a house so you will have a lot less space at your disposal.
A lot of the space inside a boat is taken up with cupboard space and each area is already predetermined with what it’s going to be. Your sofa / seating area is where the designer put it and moving it is generally not an option on your typical boat. Same with your bed in your bedroom. It’s built in (and also generally an awkward shape.)
There is never much floor space (unless you have enough money to buy a massive boat – I’m talking millions here). It’s generally just enough to walk on to move around the boat. This can make it challenging at times when you have children on board but you just have to learn to be inventive instead with where they play.
Imagine living in the space of one room of your house but everything has to fit in there – your sofa, your dining room table, your kitchen, a pantry, your bed, your toilet, a chart table, and engine, lots of tools and spares, a bookcase and anything else you need to live and you won’t go far wrong.
Safety
Boats are designed so that you can move around them safely at sea. There are no big open spaces. On well designed boats, there are plenty of hand holds and places to wedge yourself against to keep yourself from falling when moving around below decks underway.
Safety on a boat is key. There shouldn’t be anything loose below decks because when underway, if anything starts flying around, it can become dangerous very quickly. This is why all those fixed cupboards and items of furniture are built in.
You’ll need plenty of safety equipment on board just in case with the hope that you’ll never need to use it. Think like a boy scout – always be prepared.
Freedom
Living on a boat brings a real sense of freedom and adventure.
One of the real perks of it is that you can move your home whenever you feel like it.
Bored of your surroundings? Find a new anchorage. Neighbours annoying you? Try somewhere different away from other boats. Want to go and visit a new city or group of little islands that are a few miles away from the mainland but feel completely isolated and like the British version of the Caribbean? Do it! Pick your weather window and sail away, off into the sunset.
Picking up the anchor, raising the sails and sailing off towards the horizon on your own timetable feels incredibly freeing and like you’re off on a real adventure. You never really know what you’re going to come across or the wildlife you’ll see.
We are regularly treated to dolphins swimming on our bow as they ride the waves we create when we’re sailing along through the water. One night in particular when we were sailing down the west Portuguese coast was mind-blowing! It was dead calm so no wind, waves or even ripples on the surface of the sea and we were motoring. We had dolphins appear and begin to ride the bow wave. What blew our minds was that the water was glowing as we ploughed through the sea and the dolphins swam along beside us. We were disturbing an algae bloom of plankton and every movement in the water caused them to light up bright blue in a natural phenomenon called bioluminescence. Every now and then, we’d go through a shoal of fish and they’d scatter in all directions lighting up the sea like a firework explodes in the sky. You’d see the dolphins zoom off to catch one before coming back to the bow. I think I was sat on deck watching it for about an hour before I had to go down and get some sleep before it was my turn to go on watch.
Living on a boat can truly be absolutely magical.
Responsible
When you move aboard a boat, you gain a whole new set of responsibilities.
Everything that happens to you is your fault.
Just let that sink in for a minute… (pardon the pun!)
EVERYTHING that happens to you, is YOUR fault.
Once you leave port and are out at sea, getting help if there is a problem is so much harder than when you’re on land. That’s why it’s your responsibility and your’s alone to check that everything is safe, secure and in full working order before you leave your anchorage or marina.
From checking the bilge pumps work to having the correct safety equipment onboard to doing a visual rigging check – it’s all your responsibility.
Once you’re out at sea (especially when doing long crossings where there is no-one close by to help – think hours, days, even weeks sometimes before you can get the help you need), you’re on your own.
I’m not saying that to scare you because that feeling can be incredibly liberating if you look at it the right way.
Take pride in learning to maintain and fix everything onboard. If you take the time to learn new skills and be responsible for your own safety, you’ll feel safer and your confidence will grow.
Environment
Living on a boat brings you so much closer to nature and will make you think about the effect you have on the environment when living your day to day life.
You become aware of how much water you use. (Mostly because of the fact that you can only carry so much water on board depending on the size of your tanks. Filling them up when you don’t live attached to a dock means picking up the anchor/releasing from your mooring, moving your whole house to a marina or pier that has a water tap, getting all the fenders and lines out and set up, mooring up, digging out your hosepipe and then sitting there while your tanks fill which can take a while if you have big tanks. You’ll also need to be thinking about what the tide is doing at all times then go and find a spot to anchor again while using up precious diesel.) Having to do all that means you start to use a LOT less water on a daily basis so you can go as long as possible between water fill ups.
Another thing you realise very quickly is that you have a limited amount of energy in your batteries that you can use to charge things up and do things like run your fridge or charge your phone etc. You have three main options to top them up. Sit in a marina plugged into the electric (boring), run your engine (uses diesel so bad for the environment) or install things like solar panels and a wind generator to generate power from the sun and wind (much better). Guess which option we went for?!
There are a few options you have for cooking. Gas, electric and alcohol are the main ones. Electric is the option we’d go for if our battery banks were big enough as electricity is a renewable resource on a boat once you have solar and wind installed. We currently use gas and knowing that we have to go ashore to replace a gas bottle when it runs out (which can be very challenging to find the right type of
bottle), means we use it for as little time as possible. Alcohol can be found pretty much all over the world, however, swopping to this would mean replacing the stove that was already on our boat when we bought her which would be a massive expense. And, if we were going to replace the stove, we’d swop to electric, not alcohol.
Weather
I didn’t realise just how much the weather would affect our daily lives on a boat before we moved aboard.
It’s so easy to shut the curtains, turn the TV on and forget about the world outside when the weather is less than ideal in a house. On a boat, that is not an option.
It goes back to safely again. You have to check what the weather is doing on a regular basis and know exactly what’s predicted so you can make sure that you are anchored in the most protected spot. (Ie. You do not want the wind to be blowing you towards the shore incase your anchor fails as you will end up on the shore and your boat may end up on the rocks or the shore and be damaged beyond repair).
If you can position yourself somewhere with protection from the land, it also makes for a much comfier experience. Wind makes a boat move a lot wherever you are – anchor, mooring, marina (especially if you have high top sides as they act like a sail at anchor so you get blown from side to side). Wind also makes waves build which means you will be bobbing and rolling around too. It isn’t a pleasant experience (think feeling seasick at anchor sometimes) so it’s a lesson that is quickly learned – find good protection when bad weather is on its way.
Knowing what the weather is doing is also vital for passage making. You want the wind and waves to help you get to your next destination, not hinder you or make it a very uncomfortable experience.
When your dinghy is your car to get ashore and get supplies, what the weather is doing will affect when you choose to go out in it to do chores. A sunny day with little wind and flat seas vs rain, lots of wind and building seas when you’re in a small blow up dinghy… what would you choose? It’s a completely different ball game to just jumping into a car on land.
You spend a lot of time outdoors on a boat as there generally isn’t much room below decks so you are out and about exploring your surroundings or sitting in the cockpit. Dave and I are sun worshippers and much prefer warmer weather which is why we have left the UK and headed south. It’s been a lovely change to have warm winds when we’re out sailing instead of the cold wind we got ‘used’ to (learned to accept more like) up north.
Multifunctional
Your boat is your home, your transport, your workshop and your workspace (if you choose to work onboard).
It manages all this even though it is really quite a small space. You have to be flexible and expect the boat to get turned upside down on a regular basis but as you will have a lot fewer possessions on a boat, it is much easier to tidy up afterwards and return it to ‘home’ mode.
Whenever you bring something new onboard, you quickly learn that it becomes a lot more valuable when it can perform multiple functions as it takes up less space than having things that only do one job.
Asterie is our home and 90% of the time we are stopped, normally at anchor during summer and in a marina over the winter. We can quickly turn her from sailing mode into house mode when items come out of their storage places in cupboards and boxes that keep them safe while we are moving.
She moves us safely from anchorage to anchorage, marina to marina and comes alive when we’re out sailing. Travelling by boat is a lovely way to see the world and every person has a unique and different adventure along the way. It’s not like travelling along a road with everyone else. We sailed across Biscay like many, many people have done before us, but, I could almost guarantee that no-one else has ever taken exactly the same route that we did, nor touched the same bit of sea which completely boggles my mind!
Dave and I both work onboard and we have designated the front cabin as a place we can go to work where we will be disturbed as little as possible. The front cabin is also a bedroom and there is a lot of storage in there too.
There are always numerous boat jobs that need to be kept on top of. We choose to maintain items as best we can rather than fix them when they break. However, we live on a boat and things breaking become the norm as we live in a salty environment which helps things deteriorate and break more quickly. Such is life.
It’s amazing how a boat can be so many different things at once but it really makes you realise how little you actually need to live and be happy.
Family Time
If you decide to become full-time cruisers, you will end up spending a LOT more time with your family.
We both worked full-time on land and as we both found this harder and harder to do (60-70 hour working weeks are NO fun), we both went part-time. This allowed us to get used to spending more time together in a relatively large space before moving onboard into a very small space.
I highly recommend setting up boundaries when you move aboard to make sure you both/all get ‘you’ time. It is so important to make sure you look after yourself so that you can work better as a team. We’ve found out the hard way that not taking that time makes life more difficult and stressful.
It’s not always easy to get off the boat if you’re not in a marina (dinghy stowed away on deck or in the locker) and sometimes the weather can literally trap you down below decks together for days on end. Something to get used to for longer crossings.
On the flip side, we love that we get to spend so much time with each other and have this opportunity to be able to watch Erin grow and change every single day. We realise how lucky we are and cherish our time together. (Not so much the screaming fits but then who does?!)
Cheaper
It can be so much cheaper to live on a boat rather than land BUT it can also easily cost more so you have to be careful.
Living on land (in a typical house/flat etc), there are a lot of bills that are almost inevitable. Rent/mortgage, gas, electric, water, council tax, home phone, broadband, mobile phone, TV license, maybe even SKY TV or similar, monthly car payment, car tax, car insurance, petrol/diesel to run your car etc etc. The list goes on. We cut down as many of these as possible while we were saving up and planning to leave but we still couldn’t get rid of all of them. We worked out that pretty much one of our wages each month was dedicated to just paying the bills and part of the other one covered unexpected bills that came up. Insane. We literally went to work to pay the bills.
Once we moved onto the boat, life became a lot simpler (and cheaper). We deliberately chose to buy a boat that we could afford outright as we would be living off savings and wanted to minimise our spending each month so they’d last longer.
Anchoring is free (the majority of the time). Gas on tap became a gas bottle that was replaced whenever we ran out every three weeks or so. Electric was provided by our solar and wind generator for free. If we were in a marina then we’d plug in and use the electric that was included in the price to top the batteries up. Water was topped up for free. Council tax, gone. Home phone, gone. Broadband was replaced with data from our phones and then a mobile broadband contract. Mobile phones we kept. TV license, gone. Cable TV, gone. Our cars were sold so we didn’t have all the costs that come with running a car (and we worked them out to be hundreds of pounds a month). We do keep a small amount of petrol onboard for the outboard engine but we use a fraction of what we used to in our cars.
We went from spending 000’s a month to peanuts.
However, if we motor rather than sail or spend time in marinas rather than anchorages then our costs go up. But, it’s our choice to do that. We choose whether to pay those costs or not. You can’t say that about your council tax or water bill let alone the rest. Living on a boat has been SO much cheaper for us. If you do it right, then it could be for you too.
No Privacy
It’s time to get used to sharing. On a boat, you can hear everything. And I mean everything.
Going to the toilet is not the private experience it used to be. You will get to know who you live with very well indeed, put it that way. So, I hope you really like whoever you choose live on a boat with!
A good pair of headphones are a must in my opinion and a door or curtain you can shut when you just want some time out on your own (which I believe is essential). Going out exploring or just out for a drink on your own is good too when you just need to get off the boat. It happens. Boats can be your safe little cocoon haven or they can be a pressure cooker. It just depends what mood you’re in.
Simpler, Slower Pace Of Life
One of the reasons we moved onto a boat was so that we could slow down our pace of life.
We were both like tightly coiled springs to start with because of our jobs and we have slowly begun to unwind and relax more. Neither of us are there yet, but my god, we’re so much more chilled out than we used to be. Adding Erin into the mix probably didn’t help our quest for zen but we had been talking about having children for years, we love her to bits and no-one ever said that having kids was easy.
Our pace of life is a lot slower than it used to be. We can take our time doing mundane tasks like doing the food shop (which I think is a lot more fun in a foreign supermarket anyway), we can’t fill up our water tanks any quicker than the rate it comes out of the tap, we walk to the majority of places we visit as we don’t have a car anymore.
Walking somewhere that’s an hour each way is nothing to us now. Food is cooked from scratch on the boat a lot of the time as we don’t have a freezer onboard for quick and easy ready meals. Washing has to be taken to a laundrette, we can’t go far from it and it takes up a lot of the day as we tend to let it build up and then do it all in one go. Sleep is when we feel like it. Work and boat jobs are done when we get up in the morning and worked around Erin.
We don’t have all the worries that we did back home now we’re on a boat. Generally, it’s other people that stress us out and cause problems. We’re lucky in the fact that we get along quite well together 99% of the time. The other 1% of the time, it’s outside influences that stress us out that aren’t run of the mill day to day things (like selling our house and first boat). Not having a mortgage and big bills each month nor having to deal with going to work off the boat makes life a lot simpler.
I couldn’t imagine going back to the pace of life we used to lead – it made us both ill. However, I think a lot of people believe that we spend all day lying on a beach and that just isn’t true. We’ve had about TWO beach days all summer. We just don’t have time for that as there are always so many other things that need doing and everything takes longer to do! So a slower pace of life, yes, but it’s still full of things to do on a daily basis.
Isolating
Living on a boat can be isolating. This can be good and bad depending on how you look at it and the effort you put in to meeting others.
If you like your own company and spending time alone then this is a great way of life to do that. If you’re out at anchor, there may be other boats around but you’d need to jump in a dinghy or on a paddleboard to go and speak to others (or they might come to you to say hi) or to go ashore.
Having a baby or children onboard can also make you feel quite isolated as you are generally away from friends and family and they can’t just pop round. FaceTime comes in very handy as at least you are able to see their faces and have a chat but it’s not the same as actually spending time with them. It does make you really treasure the times you do get to see them though.
However, on the whole, cruisers are generally a really friendly, welcoming bunch and when you find yourselves around them, they really help squash the feeling of isolation. We’ve found that since we’ve settled down for a winter in the Algarve in a marina, we’ve spent more time socialising than we have for a long time. Getting away from the UK has definitely helped in a weird way as everyone is in the same boat being away from family and friends back home so the majority want to find new friends to spend time with.
In a marina, if you want to socialise and spend time with other people, walking along the pontoons to see who’s sat in their cockpit is always good as nine times out of ten you’ll end up striking up a conversation. On the other hand, if you don’t want to socialise then you don’t have to.
Movement
When you move aboard a boat, your whole world starts moving. It’s strange to get used to to begin with as you notice every tiny movement of the boat. The smaller the boat, the bigger and faster the movement.
When you’ve been living on board for some time, you get so used to the movement you don’t even realise it’s happening. The gentle rocking helps you go to sleep at night and it really helps with getting babies to sleep too. I looked up at the mast when I was putting Erin to bed last night and we were gently rocking from side to side yet I could barely feel the movement at all. What makes me laugh is that the bigger the movement, the happier Erin is. She truly is a boat baby!
Getting used to the movement when sailing is a whole different ball game. Learning to live life on the lean takes some getting used to. In all honesty, I’m not a fan of being tipped over so we tend to sail with less sail up than we need to keep the boat sailing flatter. In choppy seas the movement can make it feel like you’re in a washing machine at times which in my case is puke inducing. Lucky me. Hopefully you’re one of the lucky ones that doesn’t get seasick or it can be quite debilitating at times (just to pre-warn you). I spent most of the English channel crossing lying on the bedroom floor trying not to throw up and failing miserably at times. All while trying to look after Erin as well.
Sailing has many ups and downs, movement is one of them. Sometimes it’s great, other times it really isn’t.
Glamping
I moved on our boat half expecting it to be just like glamping.
We camped a lot in the past when we still lived on land and enjoyed getting back to nature. I though living on a boat would be a lot like camping but with a fixed bed, your own bedsheets, a toilet and cooking facilities onboard… which to be honest, is basically pretty much what it is on a small boat. On a bigger boat with more mod-cons, it’s just like living in a very small house that you can move.
But, living on a boat is so much more than just that.
You have the freedom to move whenever you want to (weather permitting) without having to pack your whole campsite away. It all comes with you. Yes, you need to tidy up and stow everything away first but it’s so much easier than having to roll up the bedding, deflate your air mattress, store all your cooking equipment away into a plastic box, pack away a tent into a tiny little bag and then somehow fit it all into the boot of your car or van.
A lot of boats these days have running water. For our first two years of living on a boat, we only had foot pumps that provided cold water and no shower onboard. We learned to adapt to our new circumstances and began to heat water in a kettle on the stove when we were on the mooring or out at anchor. If we stayed in a marina then we used an electric kettle to heat water. We went ashore and found showers to use and learned to really appreciate a good hot powerful shower, something that you take for granted when you live on land.
On our current boat, we now have a water heater, taps that don’t need a foot pump to use them and a shower and to be honest, we miss our foot pumps. We could be a lot more careful with the amount of water we used and make our supply last longer. Being able to shower on the boat with hot water especially has been a total game changer – especially when Erin arrived and couldn’t be left long enough for me to walk up to the marina shower block to have one on land.
Travelling from anchorage to anchorage is so much more freeing than sitting in a hot stuffy car on the road with every man and his dog doing the same (on one of the few weekends a year you actually have weather nice enough to go and camp).
When you arrive at your new anchorage, your bed is already made for you, the cooker can be used en route if you want food on passage, the toilet is open and ready for use whenever it’s needed – no need to stop at a service station along the way (though it can be interesting to use when you’re heeled over but it’s all part of the fun).
And the best bit – you can pick the perfect spot to drop your anchor, exactly where you want it. You can choose to be as close to or as far away from other boats as you want and the perfect distance away from the shore. How many times does that happen when you go camping or glamping? Most of the time you get told which pitch you’re on, or if not, you end up with other people setting up camp much closer than you’d like. The majority of boat owners are courteous and leave a decent amount of room between boats to allow for room to swing when the wind or tide shifts but, of course, there are always the odd few to keep your eye on.
Summary
So, when you move onto a boat, it’s a little bit like glamping but so much better.
You learn to really appreciate the small things like hot running water and you really value the possessions you have onboard as they will have been specially selected to stay as storage space is at a premium on boat. The freedom you feel when you pick up your anchor and go to sea is incredible. Seeing wildlife in their proper habitats is magical – I don’t think having dolphins on our bow will ever get old – especially when they make the sea light up and glow as they move through the water.
It takes some adjustment to get used to living in such a small space. You need to make sure you have time apart for your mental health and take responsibility for all your actions and safety when on a boat.
Everything slows down on a boat, it can be much cheaper than living on land and you can be as isolated or as social as you want. I’ve found other cruisers to be far more social than our old neighbours back home as everyone has more time for you – and you’ll always hear some great cruising stories when you get together. You’ll be telling them yourself before too long.
It really is no wonder that people fall in love with living on a boat and the cruising lifestyle. We have. When we left originally in June 2017, we both had two year career breaks from our jobs. Three and a half years later, we’re still going. Every now and then the conversation turns to going back home and going back to a ‘normal’ life. The idea really does not appeal to us and we have no intention of returning to land life anytime soon. We’re having far too much fun living on a boat, travelling and exploring our world, experiencing different cultures and climates along the way. Living on a boat is so much better than we originally anticipated and I can see why more and more people are giving up land life for a life at sea.
Does living on a boat sound like what you expected it to be like? What are your plans for moving aboard a boat and heading off into the sunset?
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