Great Liveaboard Communities Share Common Traits
Do you ever feel like you are wandering through this life looking for your village? This calling is one of many things that fuels my need for perpetual motion. What are we searching for if not a place to call home? After years of travel by land and sea, I have learned that ‘home’ isn’t a physical dwelling. It’s the people you share your life with. Until recently, most of human history unfolded within a small community of people. Today, our busy schedules and modern habits have overshadowed our deeply human need for community. Liveaboard communities bring it back.
Like it or not, boaters are interdependent. We need each other. When you step onto a dock that makes you feel like you’ve found your village, that is a pretty good indicator of a great liveaboard community.
Liveaboard Communities Offer Help
Here is where liveaboard communities really shine. We can’t escape the interdependence that binds us together on the water. Helpfulness is the single most defining feature of boaters.
Boot Key Harbor in the Florida Keys is home to one of the biggest liveaboard communities in the country. While we waited to come up on the waiting list for a mooring ball, we found a tiny spot to drop anchor outside the mooring field. We were not alone. About 100 other boats were also waiting to come up on the list. We were packed in like sardines.
One morning I walked into the cockpit and saw a big trawler behind us dragging its anchor. It was perilously close to a nearby sailboat. Before even a minute could elapse, four separate dinghies rushed in from various anchorages. Each person took a line and a designated role in the rescue. In a matter of minutes the group of samaritans prevented a collision with another boat, pushed the trawler back to its original spot, and pulled the anchor and reset it.
They did this all without boarding the vessel. Later that day, the elderly couple returned to their boat completely unaware of what transpired in their absence.
Liveaboard Boaters Spring Into Action
Our first boat was a fixer upper. For every penny we saved on the ‘purchase price,’ we paid for it in endless repairs. A few months into our amateur restoration, my husband replaced a foot pump in the galley. I won’t go into too much detail, but somewhere along the way he put a hole in the bottom of the boat.
As water poured into the galley, my husband ran out onto the docks shouting. A nearby liveaboard came running. He immediately jumped into the boat with a drill and marine sealant. They went to work fast and without hesitation. It wasn’t long before the docks were crowding up with fellow boaters offering a hand and a tool.
With the help of fellow liveaboards, our boat continued to float. Everyone within earshot came to help. They plugged the hole and stopped the leak within minutes.
This is what the boating community is all about. Boaters offer abundant and unconditional help when it’s needed. In fact, if you encounter a boat in distress on the water, you are required by law to assist them if you’re able. Did you know that? Anything less would upset the balance of boating entirely.
But this law isn’t what moves people to offer their assistance. It is the like-mindedness within the boating community that lives by the golden rule.
Liveaboard Communities Harbor Village Mentors
Sailing mentors are a cornerstone of great liveaboard communities. At Vero Beach City Marina, my husband and I spent a summer preparing our boat and our resolve to sail to the Bahamas with two small children. I was overcome with anxiety over the endeavor. That’s when I met Paul and Melinda in the marina’s clubhouse. They were elderly sailors living on their boat in the mooring field. They spent the greater part of their lives sailing the Caribbean. Paul knew the Exuma islands like the back of his hand.
He sat down with me and told me exactly what to expect at each location, and how to avoid disaster in dangerous cuts. We spent hours poring over the Explorer Chart Books, and he went over every nook and cranny on the map. He didn’t have to share so much of his time and knowledge with us. But without it, I don’t know if I could have made the trip with the confidence I needed.
This is one of many beautiful traits in liveaboard communities: People want to share their knowledge and skills. They want to help others live out their dream.
Boating communities feel like a big relay race of information. We all pass along the baton to the next runner, each time imparting invaluable skill sets and knowledge to the next person.
Liveaboard Communities Have Useful Local Nets
When you visit liveaboard communities, see if you can access the local net in the morning. These daily announcements can be accessed on a designated VHF channel. In Georgetown in the Bahamas, the morning net would go on for hours. After they made all of the announcements of upcoming community events, individuals could get on and ask for boat parts or help on various projects. People in the harbor responded to help requests immediately, and often in tandem. I felt like I was at church or something. The love and compassion for those in need was overwhelming.
Liveaboard Communities Host Family Events
I have yet to encounter a liveaboard community that didn’t have a calendar full of community events. In the Rio Dulce in Guatemala, scores of marinas are packed with liveaboards. At our marina, each member was treated like family. Every week, the marina hosted events to bring people together. They hosted cookouts once a week, group yoga every morning, an Alcoholics Anonymous meetup group, Saturday movie nights, and boating swap meets.
Each event brought everyone closer together. We talked about anything and everything. I think the general feeling was this: If we all made it this far, we must have a lot in common.
Water Travel vs. Land Travel
As a family that moves between the boating and RVing world regularly, we can offer a broad perspective on nomadic communities on land and water. We can’t help but compare the two every now and then.
We broke down on Monarch Pass in Colorado once. Our radiator blew up and our car was engulfed in plumes of white smoke. We got the kids, the dog, and the hamster out of the car to safety. We were a pitiful sight. A steep dropoff loomed on the other side of our sliver of a road shoulder. We had no cell service and the sun was heating up fast.
What are we going to do?
I started to panic.
Hundreds of cars passed us, and at least 50 RVs. Not a single person stopped.
I looked at my husband.
“If we were in our sailboat, a fellow boater would have helped us by now.”
Eventually someone pulled over and offered us the use of his phone. We were able to call for help. But I never forgot that moment. I longed for the kind of help that feels instinctive on the water.
Whenever our family talks about the boat versus the RV, we can’t help but talk about the people. While RVing with kids is hands down the easier method of travel, the boating community offers a sense of kinship.
Living on the water, we have made best friends, lifelong mentors, and met the most inspiring people we know to date. These connections are surprisingly hard to leave behind.
Olivia de Soria
