People who live on a boat are few and far between, and it can be difficult enough to just try and get internet access aboard for a lot of mariners. (In Honolulu, we’re using a CLEAR hotspot to access the internet via new WiMax 4G technology, a lot similar to what pumps in your data to your smartphone.) And even further, there’s fewer boater’s out there that take the time to share their day-to-day experience on the high seas.
Which is rather unfortunate. See, living on a boat gives you a lifestyle that you couldn’t make up if you tried. Just the other morning, we were just waking up on our boat when the captain from the next slip knocked on our boat and asked for help in putting his mast back on. No matter what you do, you’re just not prepared mentally to hear “Can you help me get my mast up?” Try not snickering, especially when the man asking you is a little older, and half-naked too. And that’s just a small taste of what goes on around here.
Since we’re so close to the airport, we get air traffic that flies in low all the time. In fact, it’s almost impossible to sleep through the Aloha Air Cargo 737 flight that comes in at around 4 in the morning. Every morning. You’d think with all that air traffic going overhead, we’d never stop to look up at them anymore. But we were lucky enough to see President Obama fly right over our heads in Air Force One last holiday season. And we we’re close. I could even see the pilot’s faces. But that’s just one part of a routine day on a boat.
And when I say routine, I’m really stretching the word to it’s limits. Boating is nothing like living on the land. When it rains in Hawai’i, you’re typically pretty okay if you’re on solid ground, and the most that you’d really have for a safety concern would be some sporadic flooding. But when your entire apartment is a 37-foot long wooden boat that weighs as much as an elephant, that seemingly small rainstorm can turn into a shitshow of epic proportions, and fast.
Maybe that’s why not a lot of boaters are bloggers: when you’re in a storm, you’re thinking more about how to stop your boat from crashing into the one next to it, and not grabbing your camera. I can remember last year when we took our boat out to sea for the day because of a tsunami threat. All I could think at the time was that I was so tired and seasick that I wanted to chunder (and chunder I did.) Getting back, I wrote a lot about it, but we didn’t take that many pictures when we were at sea, and certainly didn’t figure out how to get internet access out there. (At one point during the day, we tried to turn on a power inverter, which ended badly when it shot sparks everywhere in the main cabin).
Oh, and in case you’re wondering: boats can get their power from the shore with a yellow cable, and you can operate the same kinds of things you would plug into a standard wall outlet when you’re aboard too.
