Hi all, my name is Craig Poole, and though now I am a landlubber, I was once one of the breathern. Here's a bit of my tale for the records.
I started my liveaboard experience in Jersey City, NJ (Liberty Harbor Marina) in 1996 or 97, initially living on a smallish houseboat and them moving on to a sailboat. We had a smallish liveaboard community at the marina and initially there were no problems about living aboard (actually we weren't "living aboard" more as we were they a lot of the time!! Perhaps 10-12 of the some 50-60 boats at the marina were full time liveaboard though. We all mostly got along except for a few problems and it being a "Peyton Place" where everyone knew everyones business. The hardest part was the winters when the water lines were shut down except for one single hose that was left running 24/7. Things pretty much changed for the worse though when the owners shut down a small successful restaurant and opened a noisy nightclub instead. After 6 months or so the marina shut down the entire liveaboard community (this was also after a 60's foot yacht sank at it's mooring and lawsuits started to fly.) The marina directly adjacent, Liberty Landing Marina, also allowed liveaboards and does still today to my knowledge. In 2000 I moved the boat (a 1967 Moody Halberdier, 36' ketch) to Brooklyn's Gravesends Bay to a small marina called (Marine Basin marina). They didn't want liveaboards but looked the other way for the 5 or 6 boats that were occupied fulltime. I even got my mail there so it was pretty much understood that I lived there full time. This was a small privately owned marina that is tucked away and pretty much hidden from view so we were pretty much undisturbed there. In 2003 I left the NY area for good and moved south. In those 6 years I never once had any problems with police, marine patrol or sanitation department. No one ever came aboard for testing of holding tanks, etc...... By Dec of 03, I made it as far south as St. Augustine, Fl. - where I once again lived aboard as a fulltime cruiser for several months. Not sure of the name of the marina but it was up one of the small rivers leading to town (oyster creek marina???) or something like that. Again, never had a problem. I finally moved onto a mooring on the ocean side of the inlet, near the lighthouse. Now here I had problems from the Florida Marine Patrol people....they seemed to be out constantly checking for boat registrations on dinghy's, etc.....but funny, again here I never had a potty patrol check. Heading south from St. Augustine, I ran into the can't stay here more than 24 hours thing in Melbourne harbor but otherwise an uneventual trip all the way south to Key West. I by passed Marathon pretty much due to harsh weather and lack of space inside the harbor. Ended up on Key West's mooring field next to Fleming Key. The city provides 3 times weekly pump out boat, there's an expensive water taxi, a dinghy dock inside garrison bight and showers if one wants to walk over a bridge to the marina office about 100 yards or so away. Again, I was never bothered by any law enforcement agency at any point of time. I just had to prove to the Harbor master I had a holding tank and that was about it. Hearing about others travails I guess that I was mostly just lucky and was never bothered by any of the multiple police agencies that Florida seems to have in abundance. What I did learn though was that things are not so boater friendly south of St. Augustine the prices charged for services were and probably still are in the extreme (especially Key West). not sure if any of this helps but sending it regardless, craig poole Nimble Kodiak yawl Havre de Grace, Md. _______________________________________________ Liveaboard mailing list [email protected] To adjust your membership settings over the web http://www.liveaboardnow.org/mailman/listinfo/liveaboard To subscribe send an email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send an email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] The archives are at http://www.liveaboardnow.org/pipermail/liveaboard/ To search the archives http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected] The Mailman Users Guide can be found here http://www.gnu.org/software/mailman/mailman-member/index.html
