MetalBryan
Well-known member
As someone who knows NOTHING about boats but a lot about living rough, I found this website helpful - www.living-aboard.com - and evaluated this boat punk idea (thoughts posted below). It is a VERY simple site but contains a lot of information I found useful. The site's owner probably funds his lifestyle with all the ads on the site! They've got a facebook group which is mostly just posting of links from this site, however it seems legit to me at least.
1. For someone like me who knows nothing, I think the learning curve on boat-living is pretty steep without guidance. Beyond the technical knowledge about boat operations, most of the information is impractical to folx like us because it assumes a normalized or even lavish standard of living. The first question I posed to myself...
Will I just be living rough but in a dingy instead of on the ground? There's no reason to spend money on a floating hunk of metal just to pitch a tent.
2. I think xxCROWxx has made a good point about starting out... this lifestyle is going to cost roughly $2,000-5,000 to get into.... and at only $2k you'll be spending most of your time prepping your boat for open water. After looking around at some boats and info, yeah. It's going to take about $5k to have an adventure.
3. After that depressing thought, I made a connection to the premise that live-aboards (as the website calls them) is absolutely a community. There would be a strong bond among people who have chosen to live a particularly idiosyncratic lifestyle.... As StP demonstrates, there's lots of ways to live rough in the world, but living on a boat requires a few standard practices/regular upkeep and resources that everyone shares.
4. Finally, for an individual like me to get into this life I would need a guide/community. Arriving in the PacNW would be simple and if after meeting up and taking the tour I decided boatpunx wasn't for me... no big deal. I'd hit Portland/Seattle for its hospitality and then move on. I'd bring my pack and $2k, living rough, boat shopping and getting introduced around. I'd need to find work to generate more capital for my own pirate ship. I think the boats that xxCROWxx posted for sale locally are great starters - I could get one that's sea worthy and rig up my own living area... if only for the purposes of "passing" as a local living on a boat instead of a crust living in the woods. I could float around the islands for a few months picking up work for both savings and to purchase a nicer rig - then I'd be living the life.
I'll do some more research and see what's available in my local area (Chesapeake Bay, Potomac River). If anyone is in my region, perhaps we can discuss pooling our resources.
1. For someone like me who knows nothing, I think the learning curve on boat-living is pretty steep without guidance. Beyond the technical knowledge about boat operations, most of the information is impractical to folx like us because it assumes a normalized or even lavish standard of living. The first question I posed to myself...
Will I just be living rough but in a dingy instead of on the ground? There's no reason to spend money on a floating hunk of metal just to pitch a tent.
2. I think xxCROWxx has made a good point about starting out... this lifestyle is going to cost roughly $2,000-5,000 to get into.... and at only $2k you'll be spending most of your time prepping your boat for open water. After looking around at some boats and info, yeah. It's going to take about $5k to have an adventure.
3. After that depressing thought, I made a connection to the premise that live-aboards (as the website calls them) is absolutely a community. There would be a strong bond among people who have chosen to live a particularly idiosyncratic lifestyle.... As StP demonstrates, there's lots of ways to live rough in the world, but living on a boat requires a few standard practices/regular upkeep and resources that everyone shares.
4. Finally, for an individual like me to get into this life I would need a guide/community. Arriving in the PacNW would be simple and if after meeting up and taking the tour I decided boatpunx wasn't for me... no big deal. I'd hit Portland/Seattle for its hospitality and then move on. I'd bring my pack and $2k, living rough, boat shopping and getting introduced around. I'd need to find work to generate more capital for my own pirate ship. I think the boats that xxCROWxx posted for sale locally are great starters - I could get one that's sea worthy and rig up my own living area... if only for the purposes of "passing" as a local living on a boat instead of a crust living in the woods. I could float around the islands for a few months picking up work for both savings and to purchase a nicer rig - then I'd be living the life.
I'll do some more research and see what's available in my local area (Chesapeake Bay, Potomac River). If anyone is in my region, perhaps we can discuss pooling our resources.