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.
