Post Live-Aboard Fog Horn Blues

In the fall of 2004 - thats ten years and three months ago - at the adventurous age of twenty-three, I threw caution to the wind and with all of $700 in my pocket moved from my homecity of Spokane 300 miles due west to Seattle and the big Emerald city that had beckoned me like a siren, and which I would call home for the better part of the next seven years. My first winter in Seattle ( a winter of record cold, no less) was spent living aboard a derelict old wooden boat that I bought for $150 (in two monthly installments!). I kept my belongings in Rubbermaid bins in case of a sinking - a realistic concern if you'd seen my boat - the photo below gives you an idea, the back wall was Plexiglass (this is the only photograph I have from those days). I had visualized, or at least had hoped, to have enough time to grab the two huge bins and fling them onto the dock if she started going under. 

In my "house-boat," a 1965 Chris-Craft Sea-Skiff. Sept. 2004.

The thrill of cheap living and romance of misty mornings and the chime of the drawbridge quickly faded. In my dreams I was often drifting away down the ship canal or coming home to find just the antenna sticking out of the dark oily water. After 7 months of nightmares (and day-mares!) I sold the boat (for a $300 profit!) and fled to the relative stability of dry land. A year later I returned to see if it was afloat and discovered that it had just sunk two days earlier. The lady who bought it had her belongings - mostly clothes and books, as I recall - spread out all over the dock drying in the weak April sunshine. I felt bad, but was glad I had gotten away while I still could.