Boat Life vs. Land Life!
Life on a boat is a lot different than life in a house. Have you ever wondered what it’s like living on a boat instead of on land? We left Maine in September and have now sailed over 1,000 miles to Man-o-War Cay, Bahamas. So, I kind of know what I’m talking about. One difference is that I cannot walk out my door and run over to a friend’s house. On a boat we might have to sail a hundred miles to play with a friend. Some of the major differences I’ve noticed are space, schedule, school and mindset.
Space is probably the most important thing on my list. On our boat we have less than 500 square feet to live in so if me and Alice get in an argument the farthest away from each other we can get is maybe 40 feet. But there is a good side to being so close together because you get to see your parents 2 or 3 times more and you get to play more games and do super cool stuff together. One example is that I bought a boogie board and dad towed me behind the dinghy while I was on it. Another good thing is that it only takes me 5 to 10 minutes to clean my room because my room is probably the size of your closet.
If you’re a normal kid your schedule is probably something like this. First you wake up, go downstairs, eat breakfast and go to school. After school, you go to sports practice, eat dinner, and go to bed. Each day is very similar. Our schedule on Sargo, is well, I can’t tell you because we don’t have one. We can barely tell you where we’re going to be two days in advance. We were planning to sail to the Bahamas in four days, but it ended up taking a month. Even though it took a month, we had fun anyway. Every day on a boat is a new adventure!
This is probably one of my least favorite things about boat life... SCHOOL. It’s not actually that bad. We go on a lot of field trips, do science projects and other fun things. But in other ways it’s worse because if you want to work on something together you only have one person to work with. Also, pretty much all our math work is a big fat math journal which isn’t much fun. Another bad thing is if we’re in a super cool spot on a nice day we’ll be stuck on the boat doing school for the morning and not playing on the beach. But sometimes we get two field trips in one day like when we went to the Flagler Museum and Manatee Lagoon in West Palm Beach, Florida.
Mindset is probably the hardest thing to explain. One major difference is that whenever we went on a car trip I would ask “are we there yet” about 50 times every hour. But on a boat, I barely ever ask unless I’m down below wrapped up in an audiobook. I don’t ask because it’s a lot nicer to travel by boat. You can walk around, go to the bathroom, and lay down. Occasionally you see dolphins and other sea life, which is a lot more exciting than stop signs and streetlights. At home I might only be able to read a book for an hour and then I would want to go do something else. On a boat, I can sit still and listen to an audio book for hours.
As you can see there are some big differences between living on a boat and living in a house. Overall, I think that boat life and land life are pretty equal. One thing that literally tips the balance is that houses don’t rock back and forth and boats do. I’m pretty sure I’d choose boat life over land life because you get to explore and see amazing things.
(P.S. I saw pelicans in Florida and at Kiptopeke State Park in Virginia)
This is a photo of me learning to tie a rope ladder.