To simulate Liveaboard :
1.Move everything into your smallest bedroom. (40 feet is more like a 2 bedroom two bath efficiency apartment).
2.Use plywood to block off everything in your bathroom except a 3' x 3' square over your toilet. Use the shower in the EIGHTH house down the street for bathing to simulate walking from your boat to the marina showers down the dock.
3.Use a laundromat to wash all your clothes. Park your car a minimum of 300' from the laundromat to simulate hauling the clothes and stuff up the dock. Do laundry at LONG odd intervals, only when you would be in a marina that HAS a laundry. Take a cab to a strange laundry across town to simulate stopping at a marina without one or with one that is broken.
4.Seal off your kitchen and cook all your meals on a camp stove in the little bedroom so you can experience sleeping in a boat where someone burned dinner.
5.Get a humidifier and run it wide open in the bedroom for practice in "mildew control".
6.Shut the breaker off to your water heater, air conditioner and any other electrical luxuries...leaving only one 20A circuit energized.
7.Use more plywood to block off 3/4 of the closet so you can practice storing stuff in lockers. Cut off your TV cable and watch TV on rabbit ears.
8.Park your car at the same house you take showers (8 houses away). (It is a schlep, but no worse than a high rise condo dweller).
9.Put in a Change-of-Address card and have all your mail sent to a friend's house 20 miles away.
10.Rebuild your toilet once a month taking apart all the plumbing and putting it back together.
11.Every time you do anything electrical, leave your lawn mower running outside your bedroom window for "The Generator Effect".
12.Take the screens off your windows and leave them open so every fly, mosquito and gnat in the yard has easy access to your "cabin".
13.Use a boat battery to power all your "stuff" through an inverter. Charge it only once a week to simulate being in a marina.
Give that 8th neighbor $7/foot every 30 days.
14.When you fill up your car, say with $15 in gas, give the 8th neighbor an extra $15 to simulate marina gas prices.
15.Don't go to WalMart. Buy all your supplies at the most expensive 7-11 you can find. If you MUST go to any other store, use public transportation or call a cab...livaboards don't have cars on their boats.
16.Paint your house, or pay the most expensive painting company in town to paint your house, every year. Use the most expensive paint you can find. Paint the bottom floor twice to simulate putting anti-fouling paint on a hull.
17.Take your car to the most expensive dealership in town. Have him overhaul the engine and do whatever he wants to it every year. Make believe he is the ONLY place this can be done within 100 miles. Be nice and smile at him. (Good work can be found at good rates. But the more you do yourself, the better. And boats, unlike houses, DEMAND that you not defer repairs or regular maintenance. It could cost you your life).
Still interesting Liveaboard ???
I recommend open this web and read all from A to Z...
http://www.sleepingwithoars.com
Happy New Year and Fair Sails 2008 !!
