When my wife Suzanne and I decided to move on board full time, we expected some people to question our decision, our motives and our sanity. We also expected to get more practical questions about boating life. But some of the questions have strained our ability to answer them with a straight face.

One of Suzanne's favorite questions is "where do you keep all of your shoes?" When she explains that she only has four pairs of shoes and two pairs of boots, the questioner invariably looks at her as if she is an abused spouse in need of intervention. Other questions that have made us pause include "what do you do for water?", "where do you go to the bathroom?" and, my personal favorite, "do you sleep in hammocks all the time?" Apparently, the person asking had watched Master and Commander too many times.

One of the questions that I thought I knew the answer to was "what are you going to do when there's flooding?" I had always thought that this was an easy question to answer. I would patiently explain that since the boat does, technically, float, we would rise up with the flood. I would then also explain that, since we have our own generator and battery bank, we would be able to keep our food cold, run the microwave, stay warm or cold as needed and even take hot showers. In fact, I would explain that we were in better shape than if we lived in a house, since we wouldn't have any of those conveniences there.FRANK MUMMERTAs the river rises, the fuel pier at the Richmond Yacht Basin is covered, one casualty of flooding.

Then we actually lived through a flood and my perception changed a bit.

MEET ERNESTO

Tropical Storm Ernesto pounded ashore in Virginia in early September 2006. We had been living on board for almost a year and had settled into our life. Our biggest concerns at that point were installing our new Wallas diesel stove and trying to figure out how to get more air conditioning to the parts of the boat that needed it – technically, anyplace where I happened to be at the moment.

Taking advantage of the Labor Day weekend, Suzanne and I were away from Rockhopper, our 1978 Morgan 452 ketch, when the storm hit Richmond, Va. We contacted the Richmond Yacht Basin manager and let him know that we were away and asked him to keep an eye on Rocky, which he was happy to do. However, we were not one of his immediate concerns.

Since we live aboard and hadn't moved the boat in the previous month, we were very secure. I always like to have extra lines strung in such cases. We also leave extra lines on the boat just in case. It wasn't difficult for the marina people to just keep an eye on us to ensure we were not having any chafing problems. However, many of our neighbors were more active in the summer months and their boats were often just lightly tied in their slips. And since they had houses to worry about, our neighbors looked toward their homes first and boats second. These boats were keeping the staff occupied.

We returned to Richmond on Saturday morning, the storm having passed over us to the north. We could tell that the weather had been "sporty" by the number of downed trees on the roads and by the depths of the water to either side of road down to the marina. Some of the puddles looked deep enough to have a small fleet of their own.

As we came over the ridge and looked down into the marina, we were amazed by the amount of water that swept by our normally placid creek. In the words of A. A. Milne, the river had crept out of its bed and crept into ours. The surface of the water covered our slip to a depth of two feet and the dock lines on the pier emerged from the swirling water to hold the boats in place.

The interesting part was that the lights were still on. Usually, with a storm like this, the power gets knocked out for days, and other parts of Richmond did lose power. But there at the marina, the lights were still on, the air conditioners were running and the soda machine at the ship's store was still doing its impression of an unbalanced washing machine. It was this fact that made us stop at the parking lot, rather than rushing down to make sure everything was all right on board.

Several of the marina occupants were clustered in a small group near the steps down to the slips. We wandered over and listened in on the conversation. The subject of discussion was the coming high tide. Several of the large power cruisers in the covered slips had reached the rafters on the last high tide and the next was projected to be even higher. The owners of the large boats and the marina personnel were discussing how to move the boats around on the uncovered slips to keep the roofs and the boats from meeting.

During a convenient break in the conversation, I asked about the electricity and was assured that it was on. I explained that I could tell it was on, what I was concerned about was whether wandering through the water with the power on was a good idea. On this point, opinion diverged. Some of the braver souls felt that there was a possibility of getting shocked, but as long as you stayed away from the actual connections, you should be OK. Others were of the opinion that, since this was fresh water, there was no danger at all. A small group was unsure of the danger, but assured us that they would be happy to watch us go down to the boat. If something were to go wrong, they would be sure to call the local rescue squad for us.

Thinking back to stories I had read about people getting electrocuted while swimming in marinas, I remembered that people who had survived always said that they felt a tingling in their skin before they had suffered any ill effects. Watching the river go by, I decided that the current wasn't enough to knock me off my feet and I should be able to make it to the boat without trouble. If I felt tingling at any point, I would turn around, come back to the car and figure out Plan B. Suzanne convinced me to slip into an inflatable PFD I had in the car and, while I was there, I grabbed a coil of thin line I had stashed for some reason.

We walked down to the lowest portion of the pier not under water and I tied off my line to a piling. Kissing Suzanne, I stepped down into the warm, muddy water.

THE ELECTRIC SLIDEFRANK MUMMERTAs the sun comes out, boat owners and marina employees shift the large power cruisers to uncovered slips in anticipation of the next high tide.

I resisted the natural urge to pretend I was being electrocuted, reasoning, correctly, that Suzanne would not find this particular joke funny. I might have survived the electricity only to be drowned as she held my head underwater. I edged out into the water, careful to stay in the center where I knew the pier had to be and feeling carefully for each step, aware that a loose dock board could have lifted in the flood and headed down river. My coil of line ran out four feet from the stern of my boat.

Letting go, I cautiously tracked the last couple of steps and reached out for the swim ladder. I loosened the line that held the bottom half of the ladder up and the rungs swung down into position. The bottom rung was still a foot above the dock, deep in the brown water, but I was able to find it and scrambled up onto the deck. I waved back up at Suzanne.

She started down to join me, but I waved her back. I went forward and found the painter to our inflatable dinghy, tied off to our bow. I walked the dinghy back to the stern and tied it off to the swim platform. I then grabbed a length of dock line from the lazarette and tied it off to the stern rail. I tossed the other end in the dinghy.

I stepped back in the water, still careful to make sure I felt for every step. I grabbed the painter for the dinghy and tied it off to my wrist. I then headed back up the pier, towing the dinghy behind me. When I got to the end of the line I had left in the water, I picked it out of the water and tied it and the line I had tied to the boat together.

I continued up the pier to where Suzanne was now waiting with our bags from the hotel. At my insistence, she climbed into the dinghy and I handed in the bags. Although I still hadn't felt any tingling, I wasn't going to take any chances with two of us. I towed Suanne back to the boat and she got out, transferring the bags to the boat. I tied the dinghy off to the stern, over the flooded dock and climbed aboard myself.

We unlocked the boat and went below. All the systems were working and the bilges were dry. To be sure, I fired up the small portable gas generator and made sure that if we lost power, we would still be OK. Everything worked fine and we settled in to watch the parade as the power cruisers started to settle in around us.

Within two hours, we were in the center of a raft of boats, most of them towering over our deck. Dinghies and workboats had weaved a net of docklines around us, tying off to the pilings that stuck out above the water and adjusting as necessary to allow for the rise of the coming tide. By mid afternoon, we watched as the river rose to its maximum.

SITTING PRETTY

The last boats had just been positioned when word came from up river. Someone who knew someone in the city government had reported that the tide had just crested at the city locks, about ten miles up river, and that it had been about a foot below the last high tide. The river was falling again and, barring more rain, we had seen the worst of it. The boat owners and marina personnel who had worked to get all the boats in position and secured now started working on untying their creation, hoping to have all the boats back in their home slips before dark.

As we sat on the bow that evening and watched the sun slip behind the trees on the other side of the river, we talked about the day and the difficulties we had gone through. We reviewed our actions and looked for things we would have done differently.

I learned that having a boat does not mean you can always get home. In the past, we had kept our dinghy on the foredeck when we were in the slip. Now, if there is any indication that the river might rise, we keep the dinghy in the water. If we are on the boat, we keep it tied to the bow. If we leave the boat, we move it to the highest part of the docks, so that we can get to it if needed.

I also learned to watch the docklines, especially when we are part of a group. Our docklines needed to be adjusted during the tide rise and fall, which meant that other lines on the same pilings had to be adjusted. There were several times where either the marina personnel or I had to move lines up or down in a "slinky" fashion, one set at a time. Knowing what line went to what boat is important here, especially at night. Also, chafing gear between lines can make the difference between boats staying put and boats floating away.

Also, I learned that making sure Suzanne had a good pair of rubber sea boots was more important than making sure she had a good pair of high heel boots. Technically, I didn't learn this myself, but Suzanne made sure to point it out to me the next weekend at West Marine.

We agreed that the day had been interesting and different and like nothing we had ever experienced on land. We then got out our cell phones and started calling some of more unfortunate friends, inviting them to leave their hot, dark, quiet houses and to visit us for cold drinks, a hot meal and television in our air conditioned boat. We tried not to gloat as we did.

Frank Mummert spent 15 years in the Navy where he taught nuclear engineering. He is a licensed captain. Currently he teaches sailing, and for the last two years has served as an instructor for sailors trying to obtain their captain's licenses through the Mariner's School, which is headquartered in Princeton, NJ.