we’ll be moving to a different dock, one further away from the seedy part of downtown to a spot in front of the old empress hotel. you can’t get a more dramatic change of environs in one city. there are two realities in Victoria, and we live about at the interface, perhaps a bit towards the more desperate parts.
the interesting thing is while the homeless have caused us an expensive amount of grief, day to day living is bothered more by the fat, well-to-do kids coming in from the suburbs and uvic and raising hell at the pub above us. drunk twenty-somethings own this city core at night, and the city fathers are happy because a lot of moola is made getting these punks drunk, and they don’t have to put up with the resulting hooliganism.
anyway, we’re pulling out for greener pastures. we would have a long time ago except we were lead astray by the harbour authority, who told us that marina is really for winter storage and not liveaboards. what garbage; half the boats there have folks living on them.
we’ll have to move along for june-september, but i was thinking a change of scenery might be good for us and to stay a spell in sidney. we’ll be a lot closer to the gulf islands and hell, it’ll be quiet for a change.
not only is this marina a lot quieter, it’ll be close to underground parking for the car, which would be a nice change. the view is better. further from the floatplanes. it’s the best marina in the harbour, which is why it’s reserved for tourists during the summer. makes me think of a t-shirt i saw downtown: “if it’s tourist season how come we can’t shoot them?”

squalls are blowing through the harbour today. one moment it’s sunny, then it goes very, very dark as these clouds from hell move in and the wind is shrieking through the rigging and all the boats are bouncing and tossing like crazy. it’s a cliché but fainleog really does seem alive and it’s wonderful to be aboard listening to the howling and feel like living is an adventure.
despite the fact the rest of the country is in a deep freeze, I found a cherry tree starting to bloom. eat my shorts

i got another lesson in the other reality today. i had to go to a currency exchange to convert some euros – a lovely gift from john in ireland for my ebay homeless shelter  auction – and there was a lineup in the place. it was quite interesting listening to the exchanges taking place; people were getting thousands of dollars in pounds and euros for holiday trips. thousands! i know it’s all relative, but in my lifestyle 30 dollars is a lot of money, and tracy and i often waffle about spending that much when we go out to dinner. so to stand behind these folks and see them throwing around cash like that i realise that other people’s lives and worlds are so much different than mine.
maybe we should stay on the poorer side of the tracks; we are certainly closer to that community – at least economically speaking – than the one we are moving to in front of the empress, the hotel that serves high tea for what, $75.00?

sewer line still giving a problem so i pulled out the line and anti-siphon and replumbed it straight to an adapter fitting on the thru-hull valve itself. we’ll see how smoothly the poo flies now.

The world’s first cargo ship partially powered by a giant kite has set
sail from Germany to Venezuela last week. “Beluga SkySails” is fitted with a giant computer-guided kite, which
helps the engines to power the ship – thereby reducing fuel consumption
and emissions. (Video)

for people who think housing costs are ridiculous, look at this gem i found in fox valley, saskatchewan for $24,000.00. it’s an old timer, sure, but with stained glass windows and hardwood floors? the lot even has a tree! hard to buy a decent used car for that price. wonder what the mortgage payments would be?

Get yer liveaboard clothing here with our embroidered logo:

so you think living aboard sounds romantic? last night atabout 1:00 AM our holding tank filled up. no problem, we’ll deal with it today. Meantime we piss in the sink (even tracy, which is quite the feat). also our propane for the fireplace and cookstove ran out. we have electric heat as well, but the forecast is for snow so it helps to have the fireplace going to keep things really toasty. and we also need gas to cook dinner. the water tanks arealso empty. did i mention earlier that life is more complicated aboard? if you aren’t comfortable pissing in a sink in a pinch, this ain’t the life for you!

anyway, time to pump out the holding tank. After we did our fundraising Walk for Alzheimer’s this morning, I made a phone call to the only  pumpout in the harbour, and it’s broken down and they won’t fix it ‘till may when the tourists come back. there are a hundred boats in Victoria, most of ‘em liveaboards, and many of them tie up to coast hotel’s marina (the one that won’t fix their pumpout). so by law we are supposed to pump out our sewage, and there isn’t a pumpout station working this side of sidney, a 5 hour sail away. it seems that even when you rent liveaboard moorage you don’t have to provide the service –  our landlords are the harbour authority and they have been doing so for years without providing one. supposedly they will have one online soon, but i won’t hold my breath.

so we have no choice but to pump over the side in the strait. only one problem – the macerator pump sounds like it’s pumping cement, and it jams and blows the circuit. so back home we go, and i get to pull the system apart.

first i take all the bedding and foams out of the v-berth to get at the holding tank. I take apart the pump motor –looks fine. there is some sewage leaked on top of the tank, and i open the hatch wide because of the stink. damn that’s cold outside – around 0 degrees. then i start pulling hoses and the smell gets much worse. eventually, with a minimum of spilled sewage, i determine that the plug is past the motor.

the next part in the system is the anti-siphon valve, which is behind a wall in the head, so i have to take out cabinets to get at it. this takes a lot of time and work and when i do I find that the valve is clear; the problem has to be somewhere further along the line.

near the thru-hull the 1” hose from the pump goes to a 2” adapter and hose because the thru-hull and valve are 2”. I’m wondering if something is growing inside the thru-hull and to check, I take apart the 1”-2”adapter and great gobs of thick, liquid shit ooze out of the adapter and hose and splatter into the bilge beneath the head. There’s my problem.

eventually i got the plug cleared and the head and bilge cleaned up and disinfected. all the hatches are wide open by now as the entire boat smells like, well, shit. I go back to the v-berth to clean everything up and put it all back together, and that’s when i noticed the snowflakes falling about my ears through the open hatch.

yup, that’s living aboard, all right.

meanwhile tracy has wisely abandoned the boat the fill up the water tanks and get the propane tank filled. by the time she gets back, everything will be back to normal, and this day –which was supposed to have been spent writing –will have been shot. living aboard means you will spend a lot of time doing stuff you would give anything to not have to do, even when you really should be doing other things.

i was going to upload a video or picture apropos to the experience, but couldn’t stomach it. and yet despite the harrowing day, i’m still cool. it’s a zen thing. 

so instead…

i drink your milkshake! 

funny thing about this simple lifestyle. for the first time in 8years, i have to get a day job to afford it. since 2000, i’ve been able to work out the money in various creative ways, but the train is about to run off thetracks. i’ve agonized at length over this; my writing is becoming really quite wonderful and when i finish the rewrite of the novel i’m working on, i know it’llsell. i’ve published in a lot of sailing mags over the years and one short story anthology, but i dream of become a commercially successful novelist, and that’s a ten-year commitment. ironic that i’m so close and yet only now have tolook at wage-slavery to pay my share of the bills.

it really comes down to the liveaboard lifestyle or writing –how’s that for a decision to have to make? but it’s an important reminder that this can be an expensive option. we would save money if we were to sell the boat and go move into an apartment or an rv,  but the water….

i don’t know that i could give up living on the water, even though my writing means so much to me. although it’s a more difficult lifestyle, there’s something so damn compelling about it. maybe it’s the freedom to be able to throw off the lines and run far, far away; so far thateven the bankers can’t find you (don’t think it hasn’t occurred to me). Maybe it’s the ability to live without stuff. I read an article in the paper today that said many people’s depression can be linked to having too much junk cluttering their homes. when you live on a baot, you just can’t buy anything more than what you really need.

I’m a real renaissance man; degrees in environmental science, fine art, and a graduate diploma in art therapy. plus a journeyman’s ticket in electronics.

so i’m looking at a variety of jobs that i’ve found posted: working in a homeless shelter, working in marine electrical in a boat manufacturing facility, the same but in an aircraft manufacturing plant, working as a computer tech in a local office supply store, and working as a junior field biologist in a environmental consulting company. hell of a lot of choice and a lot of different resumes to make. it’ll be interesting to see where it goes.

i would just prefer to do the marine electrical business i’ve started, but advertising to do boat work up here in jan is like selling suntan oil in nunavut. 

We went to see “there will be blood” last night, and i can say it is an overwhelmingly beautiful movie. dark and disturbing, sure, but a cinematic tour-de-force nonetheless. it was so difficult, i would have to watch it several more times to get all the metaphors and allegories but i doubt that would be good for my mental health. 

i don’t think i can remember when an actor has completely carried me away as  Daniel Day-Lewis did in this movie. i never once doubted him or the character he was portraying (unlike his antagonist, played by paul dano; i didn’t buy him at all). there is a general brohuha about two lines in the movie; “I drink your milkshake,” and “I’m finished,” both of which occur at the climax of the movie. i don’t know that i think much of the latter (the last line in the movie), but the i drink your milkshake is brilliant. 

i would post a recording of the seminal line here but among the main limitations of the godaddy blog software is that you can only post one medai file per posting. you can hear it in it’s glory at  i drink your milkshake.com

 Get yer liveaboard clothing here with our embroidered logo: