Our liveaboard experience

how we came to live aboard a floating home

Down below, a cosy place to hang out. Photo credit: Cathy Gilbert

Our liveaboard experience began some four decades ago when we moved to BC from Ontario. We moved aboard a 28’ cruiser with our toddler daughter. We lived at Captains Cove Marina in Ladner; on our dock were several other families with children and we lived there for six months before deciding the boat was just a bit too small. We moved into a townhouse, but within a couple of years the bug was back. This time we moved onto a 34’ boat with two kids, and lived at Captains Cove again, and also in False Creek. The impending arrival of baby #3 persuaded us to move ashore again a couple of years later. The boat was sold to finance the house ashore, sadly.

Our second liveaboard, Porjus with our two lively oldest kids. Photo credit: Cathy Gilbert

The following decades found us with an increasing number of children (yes, we had heard of birth control). We eventually found ourselves parenting sixteen children, four by birth and a dozen by adoption from the foster care system. (They never all lived at home at the same time, the age span being over two decades). Nevertheless, we still managed to fit in some boating. We were given a 32’ double-ended gillnetter by my father-in-law and with a combination of kids sleeping just about everywhere…