What is it that makes us do it?

[DeanS]

It's winter, and the forum is peaceful besides a few trolls tonight, so I thought I'd throw this out there again...mostly because I'm still not quite sure how we ended up on a boat in the first place.

 

Why do you live on a boat?

Specifically a question to liveaboards I guess.

 

You know if you rented a place you could have so many mod cons

 

So for the sake of those who are wandering if they should make the move from land to canal....WHY did you do it, and why do you still do it. Anything recently make you want to go back to land living? If not, what do you think would ever force you off your boat? I know why we do it...because we're mad...but what about you

[Trento]

You bored again Dean?

A slow night in Manchester...is it ?

[deckhand]

Wanted to drop all the crap we seemed to be surrounding ourselves with.

Wanted to be able to live a free life

Wanted the freedom to cruise when we want to

Wanted to spend time together instead of hubby at work for 11 hours per day

Wanted to be able to pursue some hobbies and study that we have interest in

Wanted to get rid of mortgage.

 

The only thing that would make me go back on land now would be illness that could not be coped with on boat

[DeanS]

You bored again Dean?

A slow night in Manchester...is it ?

 

they banned the troll thread.

so yes, now I'm bored..lol

We used to drive over bridges and look down to see if we could spot a boat.

Then we walked along canals to spot boats.

Then we met a guy with 2 alsations who had lived on his boat for 14yrs.

Then we took a loan and bought our first boat and CC-ed for a year.

Then we bought a bigger boat and CC-ed all summer.

Currently hibernating in a marina for the winter.

I have zero inclination to ever live in a land based building ever again. I love EVERYTHING about boating, even the hard labour parts.

The highlight has to be.....other boaters. They are truly a very special group of people.

[pquinn]

because i'm allowed to,i suppose.

[jodansgang]

For us it was simple. We wanted so much to escape the joys and delights of inner city existing. With the departure of our eldest boy, a shed load of cash and our lifetime of outdoor living experience we decided that, in an attempt to try and turn our little two from boys to men, we'd tune in, turn on and drop out.

We're nearly a year in and despite the psychological adjustments we've all had to (are still) making, we love it. It's healthy and wholesome, it's bloody hard work at times but the joys and the pleasure make the hard work seem easy.

We won't go back through choice. Society is rapidly changing and not for the better. The misery, injustice, oppressive, dangerous and angry streets of normality are a world away from our blessed and abnormal existence here on the cut. We've found our utopia, our heavens a whole lot greener.

 

Oh, and there's a fair few of you lot on here to blame for that.

[Cloudinspector]

Hard to put into words really, it just feels right.

Love the lifestyle despite any inconveniences.

Can't see us living on land again except when old age or illness forces us to do so.

We started out in a marina but now on the cut full-time and it feels like our spiritual home.

wish we'd done it years ago.

[Ange]

We've just found that since we moved aboard a house contains so much wasted space.

 

We have all the gadgets we need on the boat - my hair has never been in better condition than since I stopped using a hair dryer and started letting it dry naturally.

 

Yesterday I looked out of the kitchen window and there was a heron on the opposite bank. At Thane Road we moored opposite a swan family and watched the cygnets take to the water for the first time.

 

There's so many more trivial incidents that still take our breath away.

 

A different view whenever we get fed up with the current one. If the neighbours annoy us we move the next day. The camaraderie with fellow boaters - helping them out and being helped out.

 

That's just the stuff that popped into my head immediately - there's loads more I'll think of later.

 

Dave's one is getting up for a late night pee and seeing a fox outside our window on the towpath.

[Phil Ambrose]

All of the above I suppose, I can still remember the elation when we dumped our mortgage and got out of acquition mode. Retired now for 5 years, not minted but still loving it after 13 years.

Phil

[Ange]

All of the above I suppose, I can still remember the elation when we dumped our mortgage and got out of acquition mode. Retired now for 5 years, not minted but still loving it after 13 years.

Phil

Ah not minted being the key. We came to the realisation that we would be poorer financially with our chosen life than the one we lived before but so much richer in so many other ways. No regrets.

[bassplayer]

Houses are a rip off! Even when you've paid the mortgage off you still have to pay for the privilege of that space (council tax, utility bills which all go up way more than inflation). You can't take it with you so why slave away most of your life for it? All you are really paying for is control of that property and even that can be overridden if the authorities decide to build the M666 through it.

 

Ok, so there are still costs with a boat but what a lifestyle!

 

Living on a boat only works for those who can live in a confined space. If you can do it, it's a cheap lifestyle and very rewarding. However, if you try to run a house and a boat, the boat becomes a very expensive hobby....

 

Either way, enjoy it while you can....

[pelicanafloat]

Hmm, not that easy to give a simple reason. We got the bug on a single week's hire many years ago. Years go by and we bought an Ownerslips share in a lovely 57 footer named Sceptre. I became a manager at 2 boatyards (both irresponsible in my opinion) badly looking after the interests of the owners and no amount of kid glove approach could ensure I was allowed to remain and me and O'slips parted company, amicably, and we sold our share. We then, because I was becoming increasingly tired of working 24/7, decided it would be nice to leave the South West London & Banstead, Surrey areas and head North, and we ended up in a place called Mow Cop which overlooks the Macclesfield Canal. We bought our present boat about 6 years ago as a shell from Lymm (a sailaway with foam insulated & beta38 engine), moored it for a few weeks in the marina at Etruria, where they seemed to have a likening for sunken boats - 3 there, all sunk but owners still paying for moorings; quaint or what! We managed to obtain a lovely end of farm mooring adj to the golf course at Congleton and there we stayed whilst we fitted out our boat, attempted to paint it, went for breaks on it, and mixed our time with looking for work to help out the funds. Eventually,two years ago last November, we finished getting our house ready for renting, found a fantastic family to rent our house to, and departed.

 

One of the advantages in moving into a boat is you have to sort out all the associated years of living and clutter and bringing some sense to what you need on the boat, and deciding what items to keep in storage and what items to sell/give away. We told our children that we were doing them the favour of having a clear out before we had died and so saving them the extended grief!

 

We could only afford to change our style of living because I reached 65 and this meant that pension + rent gave us quite a reasonable standard of living. I had spent my years designing & fitting out kitchens and bathrooms, doing all the work myself, and also I returned to my electrical background and took the latest electrical competency exams and became proficient in 17th Edition IEE regs. We had no real experience of the ins-and-outs of boats but it seemed a perfect preoccupation and my skills put to good use. We spent something like £45000 on buying and fitting out the boat. The build is definitely unique but we comfortable and we also know everything about the setup for when things go wrong. So, our cruising has the added enjoyment of being in something that we effectively built. If I had money and maybe a few less years, I would love to try my hand on another boat but in truth I have no desire to change.

 

Being on the boat keeps me active, and the wife Jenny when not having migraines also loves the wildlife and other subjects that fill her artistic frame of mind. We have the two Border Collies and for us the ability to stop in remote places, to go walkies along tow paths, to explore, and to meet passing strangers and be able to converse and smile; to watch fishermen fishing and anglers angling; to see birds of prey, enraged swans, courageous coots, raped ducks, fighting 16lb carp; rain all around apart from where you are, and being able to look at all those photos where apparently the sun always shone; the fun and activity of moving through a lock flight, and the occasional lift; the wonder and the magnificence of the River's Weaver and Thames; the business of the K&A, the beauty of the Mac, Calden, Peak Forrest, Rochdale, all canals but so infinitely variable and each subject to changing patterns and seasons....You name it, surely this is what being on a narrow boat is all about. We are not conditioned by size nor time. We can go where we like and we can have marvellous relaxing exciting exhillerating fun!

 

Of course, our fun is shared and we both live to be able to share our combined passion for this way of life. One day circumstances will dictate a possible change. There will come a time when both of us decide that it is time to sell the boat and move into some small couch potato one or two bedroom flat where we will vegetate and forget and move on. It is nice to think of our life continuing as it is now but it cannot be. And anyway, I have long said that I wish to end my days in a home for wrinklies and I want the pleasure of zooming around on my own electric zimmer frame frightening the hell out of the other oldies ..... it is a well known wish amongst my family

So, We spend from April till November cruising. We hook up in a marina for the winter and this gives our batteries (boat's and our's) a chance to recover.We get a chance to read up of other people's living on boats through reading posts here in this forum (where else!), and putting into practice things that appeal. We have the added security of leaving the boat to go off and mix with our families. And we try to get out and about whenever the weather permits, and lastly we can't wait for next Spring .......

[Ange]

Hey hey got another one! The last house we lived in for 4 years - by the time we left we were on hello terms with the people next door either side and had been invited to a barbeque by the folks that lived opposite. I know it's not just us being smelly/unsociable because it was obviously the norm there (though they didn't invite us back after that bbq - hmm). We all lived in our little bubbles and knew nothing about each other. I've got to know more people in much more depth in two days moored next to them. Sometimes they do talk a little too much and they do tell us a bit more about their lives than we'd really like to know (and maybe I do too ) but it's so much better than living in the suburban bubble.

[Ssscrudddy]

Well I grew up on a working manor estate. After that, boarding school. Then I got some pokey flat in the town centre.
I met a girl, & wanted to get a narrowboat (for no apparent reason), I liked watching them, but she totally wasnt interested, wouldnt even do a holiday on 1.

So 2 kids & 1 divorce later I found myself living in a half derelict mansion house (as live in security) 10 mins walk from the town centre. For some reason I've always lived as close to the town centre as possible, yet not including my late teens-early twenties I dont bother going to town.
The mansion house was like living in the countryside but with the convenience of the centre of town. I met a girl there.

9 years later the mansion house came to an end, & the thought of living in a normal terraced house, or worse yet a room in a shared house, filled me with dread. The new (of 9 years) missus thought about getting a maisonette as she called it, just a 1 bed flat with neighbours upstairs & downstairs & of course either side, but she didnt find that idea too appealing either.

By this time I had been looking at narrowboats for 3 years & wanted 1 (having never been on 1), I knew there was no way I wanted to do a 'normal' house.
& so we bought our boat.

Absolutely loving it, 2 1/2 months so far. The 1st 3 weeks out on the cut were the best. OK now we are in a marina in the centre of town, but job & time constraints & lack of transport mean we'll only get a few weeks cruising. The dream would be to have enough money to just cruise all the time, short of winning the lottery it aint gonna happen, so a marina & weekends out is the next best thing.

Short of any disasters that we cant cope with, I already know we have done the right thing, 1st winter on a boat coming up!!!

[junior]

When I banged my head in my back cabin last week for the 367th time in 3 months I did, for the first time, think that that wouldn't happen if I lived in a house.

[FadeToScarlet]

'Cos I can take my home to the pub.

[alan_fincher]

Why do you live on a boat?

Specifically a question to liveaboards I guess.

 

Correct! The question doesn't work well for non-liveaboards..............

 

I'm would be happy to have a crack at "Why do you sometimes live on a boat?" though.

[Phil Ambrose]

Come on Folk, keep these lovely stories coming, reading this I find myself nodding and saying "yes,yes" to myself

Phil

[BGA]

When I banged my head in my back cabin last week for the 367th time in 3 months I did, for the first time, think that that wouldn't happen if I lived in a house.

Steep learning curve

[Magic Potion]

Been on my boat since May this year. It's been something I've wanted do for a long time. Still can't believe it sometimes. It's ..... It just is ........ freedom, new views when you want them, the people you meet ..... I used to do a lot of towpath walking in the few years before I sold up and got the boat, just watching the boats out there and imagining it was me. Now it is. I hope these feelings never leave me.

[Phil.]

Not a liveaboard yet but will be next year and can't wait for all the reasons above

[Rufford]

I moved on to a boat because it was all I could afford, Im not a fan of paying rent and paying off someone elses mortgage and I thought if I lived on a boat for a while I could save up a good lump sum and buy a house. I have since saved up a lump sum (4 years later) and brought a bigger/better/nicer boat.

 

And the reason I stay on a boat? Its simply down to the people, the canal is full of so many different and interesting people and it has such a wonderful community - and the best thing is if I dont like my neighbours, they wont be my neighbours for much longer!

[bodger]

We are 3 months in, and absolutely loving it. Particularly like the look on colleagues and friends faces when they find out we live on a boat.

Also, looking out this morning to see a kingfisher taking a fish 2' from the front of our boat, then sitting on our mooring rope to enjoy it!

 

Regretting not doing it sooner.

[Sadelady]

Ok Heres the case against. I can never get over how much space we have when we return to the house. We have all these rooms and our own garden, mostly nobody peers into our windows at night. All our utilities are on tap, the gas the electric are at the end of a switch, someone else takes care of the supply. Do you know that the water companies pipe water into your house and miracle of all you do not have to bother with your own poo.

In the winter you can shut the front door and bugger off the beach in far off lands and when you return the house will not have floated off.

Oh and suprise its now worth 10 times what we paid for it, the boat unfortunately not.

[DeanS]

Fantastic posts for and against. ;-)

Some heartwarming stories

Coming down the Rochdale we met a guy and his dog. He had been on his boat for 20yrs. The dog knew....get off before the lock, and jump back on as the boat exited the gates. They had the routine sorted. Good to watch.