Finding home

The author fell in love with the cruising lifestyle. Photo courtesy Natasha Salvo

Spring 2024

By Natasha Salvo

What’s it all about, this life aboard a floating home called a boat? I asked myself this question for two years, during which time I lived aboard a Freedom 36 with my partner. Within three months of meeting we’d bought a boat together and sold our respective boats, and, within a year, we were living aboard.

The Freedom, with its aft cabin, pressure water, refrigeration, oven, and hot water, felt beyond luxurious, and I fell in love – with the man, the boat, and the idea. Spending the summer exploring Penobscot Bay with a partner was a dream come true as we let the wind take us to unimaginable places.

While I was willing to give living aboard for the winter at DiMillo’s in Portland a try, it didn’t take long to discover that being tied to a dock under shrink wrap with a heater running is a far cry from summer cruising. So when an offer came to spend time aboard a boat in Sicily, we jumped at the chance. Returning to Maine in February with my house rented, we opted for house-sitting over the floating igloo until we moved back on board in April. While there’s nothing like the first time, our second summer was equally adventurous and saw us cruising as far as Roque Island.

My partner’s dream was to sail down the coast and to the Bahamas, and I was game to continue. Venturing out of Maine waters was a thrill – anchoring in the Isles of Shoals, seeing the Boston skyline from a distance, motoring through the Cape Cod Canal, and then sailing up the Sakonnet River to Warren, R.I., where we’d made plans to do some boat upgrades before heading south. Once you start making a list, though, it can be hard to stop. So, for six weeks our floating home became a construction site. While our vessel was greatly improved, this version of “living aboard” was challenging.

By mid-October, we were more than ready to finally be on the move again. As we left the relatively protected waters of New England, we had a shakedown cruise of the first order and experienced multiple equipment failures. One by one, we solved each issue, and learned a lot in the process.

When the conditions allowed, we sailed along the coast and in and out of the many inlets. When they did not, we motored on the ICW. Just after the new year, we made our first long passage to the Bahamas. Three months of cruising these glorious waters and exploring the islands along the way was the gold at the end of a long and, at times, harrowing journey. For me, there were tears and elation, and everything in between. It was a peripatetic life, to be sure. Over time, I began to think about the true meaning of what it means to call a place “home.” To paraphrase the architect Gaston Bachelard from “The Poetics of Space”: “Home is a place that shelters daydreaming.” In other words, home is a safe place from which to explore . . . and presumably return. Yet when you’re living on a boat, your home is both the safe haven and the exploration rolled into one.

Whether sailing at six knots or drifting around an anchor, a boat is constantly moving. On the rare occasion that you’re anchored in a protected harbor, you notice it: “Oh right, this is what it feels like to be on land.” From this perspective, land and all its man-made elements are as close or as distant as you choose to make them. You’re constantly at the intersection of nature and your capacity to exist within it. And at the end of the anchor is a cozy, efficient, and functional living space, where your backyard is the vast sky and water and your front yard is wherever your imagination and the wind can take you.

It’s tiny house, off-the-grid living on the water, where the salon serves as living room, dining room, dance floor, or workshop, depending on the moment. You pull food from a deep refrigerator or behind your couch, which often involves an archaeological dig. To use the toilet, you step into a space that doubles as a shower. The water is only hot when you’ve run the engine, or you use a solar bag or hose in the cockpit. The water supply is limited, so you use it sparingly. And you constantly monitor your batteries to ensure the solar panels are feeding enough power to keep up with your electrical use.

There is something truly elegant and appealing about the efficiency, small carbon footprint, and direct connection with nature that boat life provides. And yet, after these many months, I’ve discovered I need more time on land to counteract time on the boat: walks in the woods; buildings that shelter the weather; a room with tall ceilings; a rectangular bed; a shower where hot water washes over you in a constant flow; a flushing toilet. Call it the creature comforts, stability, and spaciousness of a land-based existence, which are fleeting on a boat where the only buffer between you and the elements is a fiberglass hull and a canvas dodger.

And then there is the all-important feature of what I now recognize as an essential ingredient of home – the ongoing connection with family, friends, and community, all of which I missed more than I imagined.

Still, when the sun penetrates your bare skin, continual breezes caress your entire being, and wind fills your sails on a perfect reach, you feel held in the embrace of both your boat and nature in a state of true bliss that simply cannot be replicated anywhere but on the water.

Lesson learned: Take some time in life to push the edges of your comfort zone and adventure out from the safe harbor of home. Only then will you discover the true meaning of home for you.

Natasha Salvo is a lifelong sailor who has cruised in Maine, the East Coast, the Bahamas, the Caribbean, the Mediterranean, the Aegean, and the Azores. You can read more about her adventures in her blog www.surrendertotheabundance.com. She is now back home in South Portland, Maine.