Living Aboard a Boat Named Farfetched: A Couple Tells Their Story of Eight Years Living and Traveling Aboard Their Boat

By Ron Arbizzani

This is the story of one couples adventures living and traveling aboard their 47-foot cruiser, "Farfetched". It starts with their getting hooked on boating and traveling by water, many years earlier. It tells how they made their decision to really make this move and of their search for the right boat.
In 1997 they sold their home and all of their possessions to became full time live aboard boaters. During that eight-year odyssey, they traveled over 32,000 miles and visited every major city in the eastern U S. They got to cities teeming with activity and to isolated anchorages where no one else was within miles.
They experienced the serenity, beauty and solitude of anchorages in crystal clear waters off deserted beaches in the Exhuma Islands. There were also the spectacular sunsets as they made overnight passages across the Gulf of Mexico and cruised the North Channel of Lake Huron in Canada.
It also tells of the anxiety they experienced when running in high seas or looking for unseen shoals. There was also the sudden panic as they went aground and struggled to get free again. They encountered seven hurricanes in those eight years and tell how they had to deal with them.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Oct 24, 2008
• ISBN: 9780595630264

Ron Arbizzani

Ron Arbizzani has been a boating enthusiast since childhood. He and his wife, Beverly, lived full time on their boat "Farfetched" for eight years. They traveled over 32,000 miles through out the eastern US, Canada and the Bahama Islands. They now reside in Fort Myers, Florida.

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Chapter 1

Getting Hooked

Beverly and I got married in April of 1958 a couple of months before my graduation from college. We were totally broke as were many recent graduates at that time. When I finally got a job in Chicago, we moved into a third floor walk-up apartment. There was little money for entertainment and we found that spending time on or around the water could be a cheap way to get out. My dad had a fishing boat that he said we could use on the weekends if we wanted it.

In the first four years of our married life Bev and I used that old boat for occasional weekend outings on the Fox River in Geneva. By that time he had a 14-foot wood boat with an 18 horsepower Evinrude outboard motor. He didn’t mind us using it because I always tuned it up for him. The actual skiing was pretty slow with only 18 horsepower but we still managed to have fun. Both of our kids were born in those 4 years and they came right along with us. We would put a playpen on shore and usually skied with another couple. When the kids got fussy, we put them in the boat and took them for a ride. It nearly always put them to sleep.

In 1962, I changed jobs and we moved to Jackson, Michigan. That was the end of using my dad’s boat but, to my surprise, we found over 50 beautiful, clear lakes in Jackson County. We still hardly had two dimes to rub together, but we agreed that we weren’t going to live in a place with all this great water and not be able to get out on it. Consequently, we started looking in the paper and finally found an old 12-foot plywood runabout. It was $300 for the boat, motor, trailer, water skis and lines. We used that boat for about three years and it leaked every time we took it out. I patched what I thought was the leaking area only to find it leaking in a different place the next time out.

Three years later we moved from Jackson to Toledo, Ohio and shortly after, we upgraded by purchasing a 14-foot aluminum runabout. It was a glorified rowboat with a windshield, but it didn’t leak! We used that boat on Lake Erie and often towed it to some lakes in southern Michigan. We also took it down to some of the big TVA lakes in Kentucky. Both kids, now getting older, learned to ski behind that boat. As the kids got bigger, the boat got smaller and we started looking for something a little larger and nicer.

We found a very clean used 18-foot Sea Ray fiberglass runabout. This boat had a canvas top with side and aft curtains to keep us totally dry in bad weather. It had adequate seating for six and storage for skis. What luxury! That boat got dragged all over southern Michigan, down to Lake Cumberland and Kentucky Lake plus Bull Shoals and Lake of the Ozarks. We would find a motel or state park right on the lake and be on the water nearly every day of our vacation. We kept that boat for 14 years. In 1971 we moved back to Chicago and continued to use the boat on many of the inland rivers with a few excursions to Lake Michigan.

In 1984, with the kids out of the nest, we decided it was time to look at a cruiser. We thought it would be good to get one big enough to cook and sleep on but still small enough to trailer. We sold the old Sea Ray runabout and proceeded to look for a small cruiser. We went to dealers and marinas all over northern Illinois. Many of these guys would tell us they had just what we were looking for but they were nearly all junk. We were amazed at how fast boats deteriorated sitting in a yard unused. They were filthy and most smelled moldy.

Finally, we saw an ad in the paper for a 22-1/2 foot Sea Ray express cruiser right in the next town over from us. We were pleasantly surprised when we saw it. It was three years old but it looked nearly brand new. A single Chevy engine powered it. A nice old couple had it and they decided it was getting to be too much of a hassle launching and retrieving the boat on the trailer. A quick trip to the bank for a loan and we were the proud owners of a ‘big’ cruiser. Well, it seemed big to us at the time. The hitch on our car (and the car itself) didn’t seem big enough to pull the boat down to the marina so the seller kindly offered to take it down for us.

Prior to buying a larger boat, we had looked at nearby marinas to make sure a slip was available. Even though we planned to trailer it to other areas, it was too big to fit in the garage or around the house so we had to have a marina to keep it. All of the marinas within reasonable driving distance were full except one. Three Rivers Marina was pretty dumpy with rickety docks, poor power and numerous abandoned boats cluttering up the yard. In spite of the negatives, we eventually met a lot of very nice people there. That was the first hook for pursuing the live aboard life style; the people you meet.

The previous owner helped us launch that first day and we just idled over to our new slip. That boat seemed huge when compared to the runabout even though it was only four and a half feet longer. It had a little V berth in the bow, which also converted to a dinette. There was a small galley with an alcohol stove and a cold-water tap at the sink. It even had a really tiny walk-in head with a recirculating water toilet. Compared to an open runabout, this was really luxurious living. We began spending weekends on the boat and quickly fell in love with waking up on the water. That was the second hook. We loved waking up to the chatter of a flock of ducks or the call of Canadian geese and looking out over mostly dead flat water, often with wisps of mist casually rising off the surface.

Most of our early cruising consisted of exploring on the three rivers that could be reached from this marina and anchoring with a group of other boaters for swimming and a cookout. There was an active boat club that we were invited to join and they had a lot of social activities. They also planned group cruises to other marinas and cities up and down the rivers. These were adventures and social activities all rolled into one. That proved to be another hook. The camaraderie of a group of people with common interests and common problems, typically boat breakdowns, was contagious.

Our first real cruise was on our own about 150 miles down the Illinois River to Peoria to visit Bev’s mother. The amount of fuel that little boat consumed on the trip really shocked us. We could have flown down there for less than the cost of the fuel. In spite of the fuel cost shock we really enjoyed the cruise and, without realizing it, were caught on hook number four. You can travel to different places for days at a time without packing and unpacking or dragging your luggage in and out of motels. It’s relaxing in that the scenery is wonderful and you don’t have to keep your eyes glued to the road like you do in a car. You can change drivers, have lunch or go to the bathroom without stopping. You can pull into a little bay and anchor for the night; have dinner and get a good night’s sleep, most of the time. I’ll get into the bad things about anchoring later.

We took other cruises with the boat club up through the not so pretty industrial areas on the canal system to Chicago. These were typically three-day holiday affairs with lots of partying when we got there. Often someone would have a get together on their boat and we began to see how nice some of these bigger boats were. Yes, we were hooked but our big cruiser shrank dramatically that first year. I never did get around to upgrading the car or the hitch so we could tow the boat and we were having a good time right on the river. That brought us to two conclusions. First, we had lost interest in towing the boat to distant locations. Secondly, if we weren’t going to tow it then we could look for something a little bigger. This is a common malady among boaters, often referred to as two-foot-itus.

I wasn’t seriously looking for something bigger but I did scan the ads in the paper just to see what might be available. One ad caught my eye. Someone had a 27-foot cruiser for sale and he would consider a smaller boat in trade. It was a lot more money than we felt we should spend on a boat but we went to see it anyway. It was in very good condition and we both liked it but, even with a trade, we felt it was a lot to spend. The owner was a hell of a salesman. When we expressed our concern over going into debt for a boat, he rationalized that being in debt was not a problem. In fact he wanted to be in debt up to his ears when he died because he wouldn’t have to worry about it then. For some unexplainable reason we went along with his crazy logic, got another loan and bought the boat.

This boat also seemed huge to us at first. It was a 1983 model and four and a half feet longer than the old one. It was also two feet wider and had twin engines running through out drives. It had hot and cold water, an electric stove and a combined salon-dining area. It even had a little aft cabin under the helm station as well as a V berth. What luxury!

When we took possession of the boat, it was moored in a marina in Chicago. Prior to even looking at the boat, we had committed to attending a family reunion on the western shore of Lake Michigan. It fell on the same day we were to pick up the boat. We decided, in our infinite wisdom, to go to this reunion in our new boat rather than drive around the always-congested southern tip of the lake to New Buffalo, Michigan. We didn’t even have a navigation chart, instead relying on an old Mobile road map that showed the south end of the lake. The only navigation equipment on board was a compass and we would be out of sight of land for a few hours of the fifty-mile crossing.

As we look back on it now, it was a really foolhardy thing to do, but we got lucky. Lake Michigan can be terribly rough, even in the summer. On the day we crossed it was as calm as a millpond. When we finally got across, we had to ask some fishermen which way to New Buffalo. We had a great time visiting relatives and showing off our new boat. On the way back to Chicago the next day our luck held. It was so clear and calm that we could see Chicago’s skyscrapers before we lost sight of the shore astern.

That boat lasted three years. We took an extended cruise for our summer vacations each of those three years. The first trip was to Door County, Wisconsin in the Northwest corner of Lake Michigan. The next summer it was up the western shore of the lake. These two trips were with a group of other boaters like us, who really enjoyed traveling and exploring on the water. The third summer we went down the Illinois River to the Mississippi and on to St. Louis to visit our son Mark and his wife Julie who had recently moved there. Typically, on these trips we saw other bigger, newer and nicer boats than our own. We, at times, even met the owners and got a tour of their yachts. They were really impressive, but we were still satisfied with our little 27 footer. However, these trips did manage to set the live aboard fever hook in even deeper.

Then, it happened again. I was casually scanning the powerboat want ads when I noticed one by an owner of a 39-foot Sea Ray express cruiser who was specifically looking for a smaller boat to trade down. I was still not seriously interested but I was curious about why he wanted a smaller boat. I called him and found out that he had a business in Grand Rapids, Michigan and he needed some cash to expand his operations. He also had a great slip for his boat at a private club in Holland, Michigan. He originally planned to just sell the boat and continue paying for the slip until he could get another. The boat club threw a monkey wrench into that plan by telling him no boat in slip…no slip available. He now wanted a smaller boat just to keep that slip. I thanked him and forgot about it.

About two weeks later I was surprised to get a phone call from him. He told me he was coming to Chicago to see a few smaller boats whose owners said were in great shape and they were interested in trading up. He asked if he could see ours as long as he was in the area anyway. I said, fine and we would be at the marina that weekend so it would be no problem. He and his wife came down and we took the boat out for a short run. When we got back he proceeded to tell us that the other boats he looked at were junk and ours was the only one he was interested in. He asked if we would be willing to come to Holland to look at his. Even though we still weren’t serious, we agreed to look at it. Well, in short order, that boater’s disease called two-foot-itus became twelve-foot-itus.

This boat was a 1984 model and two big inboard engines powered it. It had a huge salon, part of which could be converted into a second private stateroom. The couch converted into a big double bed to accommodate a total of six people. This thing even had a generator and air conditioning. What luxury!

We took possession in the last week of October in 1988. We had one weekend to get it across the Lake, through Chicago and fifty miles down the river to our marina. The lake is often really bad in November and there are very few places to get fuel. We decided that if we didn’t make the crossing that weekend, we probably wouldn’t get it back until spring. That boat seemed huge to us compared to the 27-footer. The forward deck looked as if it went on forever. I was glad our son, Mark, never one to miss a boat adventure, was with us for our maiden voyage. I was not very good at handling this monster and Mark was a very big help in the locks and while docking. The lake was kicking up 8 to 10 foot waves that Saturday morning but we decided to try it anyway. The 39 Sea Ray was low and wide with a 14-foot beam, so it was pretty stable in rough water. In spite of that we were rolling around heavily and if I tried to run it up on plane we pounded violently. So I had to keep it down to eight or nine knots. The waves were rolling up the lake from the south and we reasoned that if we went south along the coast we would be hitting them head on and as we got near the southern end of the lake, they should subside.

Some of these big rollers were so bad that our propellers would rise out of the water as the bow pitched down into a trough. When they came out, the engines screamed at the loss of load. I tried to guess which waves were going to pull the props out so I could throttle back before they started screaming. I was rarely able to guess the right ones. It seems they weren’t necessarily the biggest ones. We crept on down the lake and the waves did seem to be a little less violent as we approached Michigan City near the Southern end. It was getting late so we pulled into the city marina to take a slip for the night. Most of the boats were already out for the winter and we only found one person on the docks. He was one of the few that still had a boat in the water. He said to take any slip and settle up in the morning.

We woke up that Sunday morning to find nobody around. Even the one die-hard boater we talked to the night before was not around. We waited around for a while and tried the office door and still found nobody. We finally decided that, to cross the lake and get down the river to the marina, we had better get going. We pulled out on to a much improved lake and proceeded to head straight across to a canal that connects Chicago to the inland river system. This access is the Calumet-Sag canal about fifteen miles south of downtown Chicago. From there boats must pass through three locks to get from Chicago down to the three rivers area where we had a slip. There was almost no pleasure boat traffic but we sill had to contend with the commercial barges on the canals and in the locks. In spite of my inept handling of this bigger boat, we got back to our marina before dark.

We kept this boat until 1996 and took five extended cruises. It had autopilot and radar, which made it even better for cruising. Four of these cruises were on Lake Michigan. On our last one, we stayed on the rivers. Some of these trips were with other boats and on some we were alone. Every one was an adventure and we thoroughly enjoyed them all. This is where we realized that we were hopelessly hooked and began to think about the possibility of becoming full time liveaboards when I finally reached retirement. We also talked to other boat enthusiasts who were thinking about it and to a few who were actually doing it.

In late 1989, I lost my job due to a major corporate downsizing. They called it mandatory retirement and I did get a tiny pension but nowhere near enough to really retire. They also provided a very good separation package, which softened the blow, somewhat. After the shock wore off, (that always happened to somebody else), we tried to realistically assess our finances to see if maybe we really could retire by investing the separation money and use the interest for income until social security kicked in. I was only fifty-four and this made it an eight-year wait. We agreed that it was too much of a risk at that time and that I better find a job for another eight or ten years. It took nearly a year but I finally found a job and this allowed us to stay in boating and to continue dreaming of cruising off into the sunset.

Chapter 2

Finding The Right Liveaboard Boat

We kept right on boating after I lost my job. We even took an extended cruise with three other boats the summer when I was unemployed. I finally found a position as Engineering Manager in a small manufacturing company about seventy-five miles south of our home in suburban Chicago. This location required us to move to Bloomington, Illinois and the nearest marinas happened to be back in Peoria where we first got started in boating nearly forty-years earlier. It took a while to find a slip in the area. The three marinas around Peoria were mostly dedicated to smaller boats and the few larger slips they had were taken. We finally found a slip in a place called Hamm’s Marina about twenty miles north of Peoria. We spent my last three working years with the Sea Ray moored there.

A number of fellow employees at the new company were also into boating. They mostly trailered smaller boats and we would, on occasion, meet on the Illinois River for a cookout using our boat as home base. Many of the other employees there probably thought all the boaters were crazy. They were absolutely sure I was crazy to be talking about selling everything and moving on to a boat full time. Bev and I agreed that we should seriously consider it after I really retired. We began by doing a little research into just what types of craft might be available. We combined a vacation to Florida with a boat search at the Miami boat show in 1994. We looked at new and used boats. We knew the price of a new boat would be outrageous, but maybe we could get ideas on size, accommodations and equipment that we would want. We explored the brokerage show to seriously see what was available and how much we might have to spend to realize this dream.

The new boat pricing confirmed what we already knew and that was; we were going to be looking at used. One type of boat that I had read about looked very interesting. It was a catamaran cruiser. They are supposed to be fast, economical and stable due to their wide beam. We found a fifty-footer at the new boat show, but I was disappointed in the small staterooms that were squeezed into the two hulls and the engine access in those narrow hulls was bad too. That super-wide beam could also be a problem trying to find a slip in many marinas. Scratch the catamaran.

There are so many configurations in boats that you could go crazy trying to look at all of them. The search has to be narrowed down to at least a specific type (trawler, motor yacht etc.) with a length range and probably a power range. You also have to decide if you want gas or Diesel power. Even then you are faced with endless choices of available boats. We knew that, with the amount of traveling we had planned, Diesel power was the only option.

We thought we needed a boat between 45 and 50 feet in length with three staterooms. Bev thought we should have three staterooms for the kids and grandkids that were bound to visit. A boat that size should give us plenty of room and yet be small enough for just the two of us to handle during docking and in passing through locks. There are even more decisions to make about the kind of boat to purchase before you start the actual search. Do you want an express cruiser style with all accommodations on one level or would a multi-level motor yacht with a fly bridge be better? The sleek, low profile express cruisers look great, but the multi-level boats have a lot more living area in the same length. On the other hand the express cruisers are typically faster and they are much less prone to rolling in rough seas due to their lower center of gravity.

We found a lot of live aboards purchase trawlers because they are more fuel efficient than a motor yacht and roomier than a sailboat or an express cruiser. The down side to the efficiency is the small engines that provide the fuel economy can only push most trawlers at eight or nine knots. We agreed we didn’t want a trawler because we wanted the option of a little more speed if necessary. Even though we planned to cruise at eight or nine knots ourselves, there are times when that extra speed can make the difference between catching a lock opening or waiting two, three or more hours for the next opening. That speed can also get you off the open water and safely into a marina before a nasty storm hits. This happened to us numerous times in our eight years of cruising.

Another boater at our marina was also interested in a larger boat and he purchased a book called Used Powerboat Guide. This book listed virtually every powerboat make and model offered for sale for the previous ten or fifteen years. Each page featured a different boat with a photograph, a floor plan and technical specifications. They also had a paragraph on the boat’s history, performance and the years it was produced. Another section of the book had all expected pricing by year and boat condition. They were kind enough to loan it to us and we spent a lot of time looking through it and eliminated tons of boats from our search.

We found that a lot of boats in our selected size range only had two staterooms and we eliminated all of them. A number of others were powered by small engines and we eliminated them as well. A lot of the multi-level boats had ladder access to get up to the fly bridge and we dropped them. We wanted to have steps that are easier to climb. When we finally came across a make and model that seemed to have what we wanted we copied that page. After all this research and study, we ended up with ten boats, out of a 700-page guide, that we felt were worth further review. This extra effort up front saved us many hours of frustration later by helping us avoid chasing down and inspecting boats that we knew wouldn’t be of interest.

Our real search got started by just going to various marinas along Lake Michigan where we knew bigger boats might be for sale. We didn’t find anything on these early trips, but we did meet some yacht brokers who were quickly licking their chops when they found out we were seriously looking for a good sized motor yacht. These guys all have access to a computerized boat listing system called the Buc Net. It lists used boats all over the country. When they called with a hot listing we could look at our little ten-page collection and decide whether is was worth looking at.

We looked at a number of boats in the spring on 1996. The first one we looked at was a 50-foot Chris Craft in