I haven’t really been on a boat in quite some time, and even then the last time was a little motor boat on a lake. As a kid, I was amazed that there was such a thing as a house boat; people living in a BOAT, on a lake. It sounded like a great time; there would be nothing but fun and barbeque burgers to eat. Heaven. It’d be almost like camping, but without all that work, plus you could fish and catch your own dinner right outside your door.

There’s the time when the twins next door and I built a shoddy excuse for a raft. I don’t recall where it was; Okanagan? We were daring Ogopogo to come after us, I suppose. Built out of twigs and barely-floating bits of wood, it floated long enough to get us all in pretty serious trouble. I don’t honestly recall if I was on the raft or on the shore when it took that maiden voyage.

I’m not a big fan of swimming, but floating’s pretty cool.

For the last year in Vancouver, I took Skytrain past Science end twice a day on the commute to work. There have been a couple dozen boats moored in the dead-end of False Creek for years, living rent free. Urban Gypsies, but they don’t seem to go anywhere.

With the price of condos in Vancouver, I’m surprised that there isn’t more of a rush to buy boats. For the price of a normal, average condo in Vancouver at $450,000, you could easily buy a decent, fully equipped sailboat, upgrade everything on it, and still have money left to pay the toll on a trip through the Panama Canal. A couple times. Add to that, no condo fees, no property taxes, and no condo association president with nothing better to do but measure the size of your welcome mat.

Is this something, though, that’s possible to do without having just cashed in a huge trust fund or otherwise being independently wealthy? Could I manage to move from a job that requires constant Internet access to one that can be done either entirely offline, or at least partly offline? Could I write or paint of sell photos rather than administer computers? Well, yes, assuming I could start selling the damned things.

Whatever, Tania will take scuba lessons and I’ll take sailing lessons… maybe we’ll sail across the ocean some day.