Riding in boats with dogs

Dog portrait

When I was two years old my parents went on vacation and left me with my aunt and uncle who had a white fluffy dog named Duffy. When they returned I had morphed into a dog. I crawled around on four legs, ate out of a bowl on the floor, and barked when someone knocked on the door. This went on until I was in kindergarten when my teacher called my mom saying I tried to eat my lunch on the floor. It was time to start acting like a human.

girl's best friend

Since then I’ve been obsessed with dogs, to the point where I’ll straddle a mean looking rottwieler I just met on the street and encourage it to slobber on my face. My main goal in life is and always has been, to have a dog of my own, perhaps even a pack, but now is not the time.
dog walker

One of my most shameful secrets is that junior year of college I rescued an abandoned kitten and made promises to keep him for the next 20 years, or however long he lived. I broke those promises. I didn’t leave him in a cardboard box along the side of the road, but I might as well have. During college breaks he was bounced around from place to place, friend to friend. When I graduated I couldn’t bring him where I was going . I found him a nice house with a nice family, where he’d have an entire mountain property to roam and hunt. The day I left he jumped out a second story window, never to be seen again. I have little doubt that he survived the fall and took to the wild, or found a new family, but I vowed that day to never get an animal again until I was in a stable enough situation to give it a home forever.

koda

I’ve taken care of and lived with a lot of dogs in the years following that fateful decision. There was Koda the misunderstood chocolate lab on the farm. Chloe, the aging spaniel on a 22-foot cutter. Cleo and Jasper, dogs that needed walking and feeding when their owners were away. Each canine I encounter reminds me how much I love the loyalty, companionship, and extreme excitement they exude upon my arrival.

Koda y yo

There’s something really special about a girl and her dog, especially on a boat. When I used to row Chloe to shore it felt like she and I were the only two beings in the world. When I would take Koda on hikes in the mountains it was like we were the only ones the other would ever need. I know the challenges sailors with dogs face, and I know the rewards of having a best friend onboard.

oh cleo

As far as my live aboard lifestyle goes, I need to have a job while living on my boat and that would mean leaving a dog onboard alone for hours at a time. Being in the northeast until at least next year, I’ll have to move off the boat in the winter and who knows where I’ll end up working or traveling. I have dreams of tramping through South America when the seasons begin to change. Maybe I’m selfish, but until I find a way to sustain my lifestyle through freelance writing, or something that won’t force me to bed down on land every once in a while, a canine first mate isn’t in the cards. Until then I’ll continue to accost dogs on the street, and crawl around on all fours barking at noises I hear…when no one else is around.

ukulele girl

Get a job

get a job

“I think careers are a 20th century invention and I don’t want one,” –Alexander Supertramp

Out of my six best mates all born and raised as red blooded american brood, three of them, including myself, live at home with their parents. Of the three that have permanently flown the coop, two work at coffee shops on the west coast to pay the bills, using their time off to develop their respective art. The other has a “real job,” for a hip wine company in Manhattan, where drinking is encouraged. Still, it’s a corporation, and while initially I wondered if my free spirited, creative friend was selling his soul I realized that if you can take your passion, or one of them, and turn it into a way to make money then you’ve really cracked it, right?

Of all of us still living at home between the ages of 26-29, we all left at some point, mostly for a long while, and came back for one reason or another. Some of us using the time as a stepping stone to the next chapter we’d already planned to write, others using it as a time to figure out how the next chapter will read.

Many critics claim my generation useless. That we have a general malaise and lack of ambition. We’re entitled, and expect everything to be handed to us. I find, at least in my small circle, this is entirely untrue. The problem isn’t that we’re lazy, don’t want to work, or settle down, no–we all work. Most of us several jobs. It’s just that so many of us chose to make money to fuel a venture, rather than the venture being the actual act of making money. Rather than living to work, we simply work to live.

I’m lucky. Other than perhaps if I were born a man, I’ve pretty much hit the lottery as I live a very privileged life as a white, American woman from a middle class family. I’ve never gone hungry or spent a night on the streets, because I’ve always been armed with the knowledge and confidence that there’s a way to make enough money to take care of myself. While I may have spent the last few years making so little money I’d technically be called “impoverished” by the government, I am in no way poor. I just choose to live simply which doesn’t require a lot of money.

It’s starting to happen though, people around me are changing. Pretty soon they might even start to get married, have kids. Another friend in my small circle just got a “real job.” I’m insanely proud of her and have always been quick to spout her academic successes to anyone who will listen. But despite my swelling pride, I can’t help but feel like my friend group is getting gentrified. Like I’ll be the last one standing—holding onto a toilet bowl scrub brush and my dreams of doing something outside of a career.

I’m rounding the corner to 27 years old. I don’t know if it’s me or the pressures from societal norms, yet I can’t help but wonder if I should put more stock in finding a sustainable, long term way to keep money coming in. I don’t want to be 60 and still cleaning toilets or waiting tables. Although for now, if doing that gets me to the next port of call, well, I’m fine with that. At least until I’m 30.

Strategy for success

“Can you see the way there? If you can see the path there, get going. If not, get busy with something else.”Comfortably living aboardI visualize it in 3D, actual life, real time. I visualize it on paper, with stick figures, cartoon sails, a narrow drawing of a canal. I see the end of the season and finding some way to make money over winter  for the next, which will be the entrance to another waterway. It’s not about the money. Sure, I worry a little I might run out of money, then what? But it’s not about the money. There’s always more of that.
Road map to successMy entire life, every idea I’ve ever had, people will say “I’m afraid if you do X, Y or Z (i.e. something different than their way) you’re going to fail.” They don’t realize though, quitting is not an option. I can’t quit my life. This isn’t a sport. This isn’t a vacation. This isn’t some model fucking airplane I’m building. It’s a lifestyle. A long-term, sustainable, lifestyle.Quit yer jobHell, you know how they ask your “5-year plan” at a job interview? Well, I never had one—until now.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f8tU74WRkL4&feature=youtu.be

Living “well” below the poverty line

When I told the editor of the newspaper I used to work for that I’d never made more than $12,000 per year at the age of 25 he looked me in the eyes and said, “that’s impossible.” Meaning it’s impossible not only to live, but to live well, under those circumstances. People, like my boss (and others), might wonder how it’s possible to live on such a low income without either living in your parent’s basement forever or receiving government assistance. While it may be the case right now that I’m living with my parents to save up to buy my very own tiny floating home (thanks mom & dad!), I’ve never needed government assistance and I’ve been in a perpetual state of (slow) motion for nearly five years.

The reason I make so little is not because of low wages, rather because I chose to work for a while and then not work! My time not working is spent traveling, exploring, sailing…
Sailor girl

So, curious what kind of accommodation less than 12 grand per year can buy a girl???

Dorm style living, in New Zealand.Duncannon, NZ In 2012 I traveled overseas by myself for the first time for a seasonal job at a winery in the wine region Marlborough. That year was lousy for grapes, in fact we coined a catch phrase “Vintage 2012: Bad for grapes good for mates.” This may look like your typical college party but I assure you, it wasn’t. Everyone in this photo ranges in age from 20 to 40 and everyone is from a different country. Portugal, Argentina, Spain, the US, you name it. I’ve never been to to Italy, but I lived with Italians who taught me how to make excellent pasta sauce from a can of whole peeled tomatoes, which of course we ate at 10 p.m.

One third of a van. IMG_0276I was working for Greenpeace as a street team campaigner and was staying at a hostel in a room where beds were constantly emptied and refilled with travelers and seasonal workers. After a couple of months Greenpeace sent me to campaign all over the North Island using that van above as a home base. In theory, awesome. Sharing the van with a very tall, very stinky Irishman and Canadian? Only awesome for a couple of weeks.

A little cottage with a banana tree.IMG_0301
And an incredible view.
IMG_2524
(For any sailors reading this blog, that’s the Bay of Islands where Lin and Larry Pardey live). This sweet little abode was half mine for eight hours per week of housekeeping at the bed and breakfast next door. My then boyfriend/flatmate also worked for eight hours gardening at the B&B to cover his half of the rent. We got sick of the TV so we turned the couch to face outside. The view was always better than what was on.

A room in the cleanest house that ever existed.IMG_3204
Honestly probably my favorite place to live if only for what it represented at the time, a refuge from the storm. I went back to the NZ wine region last minute in 2013 for a job and wound up living in a house that was advertised as having access to the river, and only $75 per week. Well, the river was nice but the owner raised the price to $90 per week because he had bought each of us containers for our food and cleared out extra cabinet space. There were nearly seven people living there and one roommate spoke very loudly (nearly screaming) every night around 2 a.m. to his family in Sri Lanka. The homeowner also refused to turn on the heat and was not very kind to his mail order bride from the Philippines (who by the way was very sweet and made me a plate of mussels and potatoes once). I begged my workmate to ask his landlord if I could stay in the extra room in his house. It was $125 a week and I’m pretty sure the landlord checked every night to make sure I didn’t leave any clothes on the floor (it was a stipulation to living there), but I didn’t care. It was a clean, well lit place.

A handmade clay cabin surrounded by rainforest and permaculture gardens.
IMG_3872IMG_3812In Australia I stayed for free for a month helping my now dear friend maintain her gardens. I went to Australia in hope of staying longer (and because my second visa had expired in NZ), but found myself yearning to experience the coasts of my own country.

A room in wine country.IMG_4385I didn’t get to meet the land lady for a while because she was busy hiking the John Muir Trail (she didn’t like me very much anyway). I remember sitting outside underneath an electric sky of stars and could hear coyotes. Less than a mile away was a dense forest wilderness, vineyards and more sky than I’d ever seen. I felt like I’d finally arrived in California, the promised land.

A really crappy yet fully functional and (basically) reliable car.photo-2
I pretty much lived out of my car for a while as I road tripped both with friends and solo from California to Canada and everything in between, multiple times. When my friend and I crossed the border into Canada the immigration officer was very confused by the amount of stuff I had in my vehicle and I think he thought we might try and stay there forever…

A tiny cabin/shed on a mystical goat farm.IMG_5039
Some of the best six months of my life were spent shoveling goat poop, milking their udders, and canoodling with the guard dogs. This farm was entirely run by (mostly) young, open minded and inclusive people. We were in the foothills of Mount Rainier and on clear days you could see the mountain in all its glory. But even the stature of the mountain did not compare to the bounty that was this farm and the community that kept it thriving.

A prefab log cabin on a little evergreen island. IMG_5148
This cabin was sweet, but I’ll admit I was very lonely at the time and mostly only took pictures of the food on the shelves (I was OBSESSED with trying to have a “clean diet”). The cabin was part of the employee housing at a snooty marina where I worked tying up boats.

A berth on a 22 foot sailboat.IMG_5378
But anyone reading this blog already knows that story…