Last year, entirely on a lark, I put my name on the local marina's list of people waiting for a liveaboard berth. My Navy background notwithstanding, I am clueless about living aboard, but the woman assured me that the wait could be "forever" as berths were in high demand.
I figured my name would come up in 6-8 years or so, when I was retired. I could rent out my (expensive, Northern California) house to cover the mortgage, stay in the same location among family and friends, and most important -- keep retirement living costs down in this incredibly expensive area.
Well, you guessed it, "forever" has arrived -- they have a berth with my name on it... now. That'll teach me to cook up these schemes! Apparently, all I need now is an actual BOAT!
I've learned a lot from the internet, but I still have a few unanswered questions Any help from former or current sailors out there would be most appreciated:
Q: I've seen houseboats with fiberglass, steel, wood, or cement hulls (cement floats? Who knew?). What's best for brackish water (in the San Francisco bay, but at the mouth of a river -- water is semi-salty, I'm told.)
Q: How often do you need to haul the boat out to scrape / paint / whatever?
Q: How do you make sure you don't buy yourself a rock? (I've seen TWO grubby little boats sitting on the bottom in the marina in the last two years -- Yikes!!! The very WORST water leak in a land-based house can't be as bad as that!)
Q: If I wanted to move this thing to Wash or Oregon sometime in the future, would it be possible to get a flatbed to haul it and would that be unreasonably expensive? (yeah, I suppose I could "drive" it up from here (note the technical seagoing language here), but I'm not sure "houseboat" and "Pacific Ocean Cruise" belong in the same sentence.
Q: What's the best resource for boning up on these issues real quick like?
Any and all wisdom would be most appreciated -- thank you kindly.
Caroline
I figured my name would come up in 6-8 years or so, when I was retired. I could rent out my (expensive, Northern California) house to cover the mortgage, stay in the same location among family and friends, and most important -- keep retirement living costs down in this incredibly expensive area.
Well, you guessed it, "forever" has arrived -- they have a berth with my name on it... now. That'll teach me to cook up these schemes! Apparently, all I need now is an actual BOAT!
I've learned a lot from the internet, but I still have a few unanswered questions Any help from former or current sailors out there would be most appreciated:
Q: I've seen houseboats with fiberglass, steel, wood, or cement hulls (cement floats? Who knew?). What's best for brackish water (in the San Francisco bay, but at the mouth of a river -- water is semi-salty, I'm told.)
Q: How often do you need to haul the boat out to scrape / paint / whatever?
Q: How do you make sure you don't buy yourself a rock? (I've seen TWO grubby little boats sitting on the bottom in the marina in the last two years -- Yikes!!! The very WORST water leak in a land-based house can't be as bad as that!)
Q: If I wanted to move this thing to Wash or Oregon sometime in the future, would it be possible to get a flatbed to haul it and would that be unreasonably expensive? (yeah, I suppose I could "drive" it up from here (note the technical seagoing language here), but I'm not sure "houseboat" and "Pacific Ocean Cruise" belong in the same sentence.
Q: What's the best resource for boning up on these issues real quick like?
Any and all wisdom would be most appreciated -- thank you kindly.
Caroline