Training for a liveaboard’s life

[HinewaisMan]

I guess this should be in Liveaboard Link, but more coverage here for my appeal.

A few years back, when we were first thinking about our circumnavigation, a mate sent me an email about how to train for liveaboard life while still at home.

It was full of helpful ideas like, if I remember right, moving into just one room of the house, switching on the sprinklers if you ever used the garden, never using the car and carrying all your shopping home – and my favorite, after seeing the bank manager in your glad rags, servicing the lawn mower to emulate those moments when the outboard won’t start (so so true).

An email long since lost in the archives back in Australia.

Another good mate back at our Club in Melbourne, silly bugger, is thinking of doing the same now – they are looking for “the boat”. So he emailed me asking for advice.

I would so love to send him that email, but can’t find anything like it Googling.- does anyone have a copy?

Or better still, suggestions on how to train for a liveaboard's life

 

[Skysail]

Possibly another version:

Sleep on a shelf in a broom cupboard. Replace the cupboard door with a curtain. Then:

Two hours after you go to sleep, have your better half whip open the curtain and shine a torch in your eyes and shout , " You’re on",
OR
set your alarm clock to go off at random times during the night: when it does, jump off the shelf and get dressed as fast as you can, run into the garden and shower under the garden hose, OR
wake up at 2 am and have a peanut butter sandwich on stale bread.

Renovate your bathroom. Build a wall across the middle of the bath and move the shower head down to chest level. When you take a shower, shut off the water when you've got the shower gel into a good lather.

Dispense with your dustbin. Place all non edible household waste in small plastic bags, and store them in the other half of the bath.
Throw any edible waste out of the window.
Bring indoors some form of petrol engine (a lawn mower will be fine), start it and leave it running while trying to hold a conversation.
Once a week, select a major household appliance, take it apart and put it back together. Count the parts left over.
Have a fluorescent lamp installed under your coffee table and lie under it to read books.
Raise the doorsteps and lower the top sills on your front and back doors so that you trip over the threshold or hit your head on the sill every time you pass through.

 

[Twister_Ken]

Get the milkman to knock on your window every morning and shout "Harbour Dues."

 

[csharpatsea]

Decommission your central heating boiler and heat the house with a hot air dryer.

 

[Ariadne]

I remember that one doing the rounds - just after we left!

Was good though, we sent it to friends who don't do boats but sadly they didn't see the humor in it.

If anybody has it can you please post it.

 

[lenseman]

Or better still, suggestions on how to train for a liveaboard's life

Yes, when you turn in for the night, remove all your clothes and put them in a plastic bin full of water.

When you get up in the morning, retrieve your wet clothes and get dressed!!

 

[mikehibb]

Can not better Skysails response, bloody brilliant.

Just to add a few more:

Do not forget Battery management.

No matter how many amp/hours or how big your inverter is you still need to prioritise use.

There are two ways of looking at this.

HIS:
Fridge = Cold Beer
Nav systems = Need to make sure we get to next re-vital location.
Laptop = Check weather on internet (note might have set of any way despite weather as beer stocks were low, see Nav systems above)
Hair drier = That is what the wind does.

HERS:
Hair drier = I hate having frizzy bad hair days
Laptop = I want to Skype my friends
Nav systems= What does this red button do?
Fridge = "Why do we need a fridge? you promised me that we would be living the dream and eating out in the best marina restaurants around the world"


Do not forget buying plenty of Frey Bentos pies and try eating them every day.

 

[jonic]

Skysail that is hilarious.

I'm sitting here in the cockpit reading it with tears of laughter streaming down my face.

I'm also sat here eating a spag bog made with an old tin of corned beef because we have run out of fresh stuf, a wet backside because it's been pouring all day and my oilies seem to have stopped working, drinking some awful wine out of a melamine tea mug and typing furiously as the battery on the laptop is about run out. Oh the joys of the liveaboard life.

 

[HinewaisMan]

Thanks for these - keep'em coming.

Now we've stopped laughing and being up in the hard in Alanya (about leave the big girl for a few months for the first time in 3 years - odd sad feeling) we might add

Put a ladder up to a bedroom window and only use that to enter or exit the house. Block the sink and use a bucket - and only empty it out of the widow at night. Get warm and snuggled in bed, realise you need a wee, get up, dressed, climb out window and down ladder, walk 200 yards to nearest dark area, dodging other householders emptying their buckets from above, return, climb up ladder and through window, get undressed and back into bed.

SWMBO suggests mounting the loo on a swivle to alllow totally random movement in every plane up to 45degrees. Must be a girl thing - what's wrong with hanging out the window holding on to the telephone wires?

 

[Blueboatman]

I would not want your friend to be totally put off, so in the interest of balance:

Seal up the postbox and watch it gather spiders webs cos you no longer get junk mail and endless bills for frivolities..

Admire from afar the antics of Ikea furniture shoppers and think '' there but for the grace of ..''

Ponder all those unused vacuum cleaner attachments, step ladders and kitchen utensils gathering dust..Dust, ah say goodbye to dust

Throw away the instructions for the iron. Who needs an ironing board anyway?

Move the house to a sunny beachside location for a week and enjoy the location and lifestyle that it would otherwise take 2 heart attacks and a 25hr day to furnish, maybe?

Just think of all the tool catalogues your friend can now start perusing in his scruffy shorts and tatty hat whilst sipping one dollar beers and muttering '' Yup. Can't fix that either, so we'll do without''...

 

[Herringchoker]

Another advantage to living aboard is not having to mow the lawn and trim hedges. No mowers, strimmers, clippers, chain saw, sprayers, wheelbarrow, shovel, spade, fork and the only tiller is the one on the boat.

 

[Twister_Ken]

A strimmer comes in handy around the waterline, after a few months.

 

[Dyflin]

Many of these stem from this old chestnut

 

[Foxy]

Am in tears of laughter, its all so true!

 

[binch]

I have just showed this to the co-author of Sell Up and Sail and he laughed too. He doesn't do internet but askes if he may quote you if there is ever a new edition.

 

[Scotty_Tradewind]

I blocked my loo in the heads this w/e by stupidly putting some Kleenex down there in the middle of the night whilst dozey.
So, add to the list...
put you hands down round the bend and pull out what you can and then disconnect the big U trap behind the loo at 4a.m. to just practice.... and when that is done, use the bucket for no. 2's, then don't empty it and wrinse it til your fully awake to just pretend your in a sea and it would be dodgy. Just wait till you've had Sunday lunch.... :-(

 

[Sandyman]

Many of these stem from this old chestnut

Of course. Knew I had seen it somewhere. Brilliantly funny.

 

[misterg]

I remember similar being posted here, but can't find it. Nearest I can get is a post by Jake who remembers it too:

There was a list of things on a YBW forum a few years back about how to mentally prepare for a Blue water lifestyle whilst still living at home.

Can't find it now, but remember things like...

Bolt sheets of plywood around the toilet in your bathroom, until you just have just enough room to hunch over the bowl.

Run the lawnmower outside your window every time you want to use a powerdrill. This will get you used to the noise of the generator.

Ask several local schoolkids to knock on your door, and offer to tie your porch to a dodgy looking bush for a dollar each.

Give the same kids another dollar to make sure no-one nicks your bike for the next two hours.

Invite your neighbours round to tell you all about the various houses they've been to visit. Watch them drink all your booze and then ask you to lend them some money as 'cruising funds are a bit stretched.'

Shout at the wife if she uses more than a gallon of fresh water a day.

....and so on.

(There was another one for frustrated submariners. Every week, they would throw all the breakers in the house, shout 'emergency reactor scram!' and then sit in the dark for an hour.)

So, maybe, instead of hearing about the side effects, us Jester wanabees could get into the right mindset for Jester2010 right here at home. Any suggestions?

While I'm waiting for them to come in, I'm just off to pee on the living room carpet.....

I remember something about removing your shower and arranging with a neighbour at least 100 yards away use theirs. Also washing machine, but arranged with a different neighbour.

Wish I could find it again.

Andy

 

[HinewaisMan]

I blocked my loo in the heads this w/e by stupidly putting some Kleenex down there in the middle of the night whilst dozey. :-(

Dare I ask why you needed Kleenex in the middle of the night?

 

[lenseman]

Dare I ask why you needed Kleenex in the middle of the night?

It's a girl thing!