Gently with the Tides: The Best of Living Aboard

Interesting collection of articles from a magazine dedicated to the "living aboard" lifestyle of cruising and marina boat life. Gives an invaluable listing of livaboard marinas and how much they cost in the back. All kinds of interesting perspectives on things you wouldn't have noticed until you actually moved aboard; from psychology of families and relationships, to business matters, to marinas to legal rights. Downsides? It's written by people who aren't writers, and so it can be, well, difficult at times. Sort of like reading scrappy people who post long articles on the internet. Really, it reminded me of something published in the 1970s, for people who wished to drop out of society. Sort of a Whole Earth Catalog or Foxfire for people who like boats rather than living in Yurts.

I got this for Christmas and was very happy with it. Poor grammar makes it a bit tough to read at times but it gives a very good feeling of what a live aboard lifestyle would be like. A must for those thinking of living aboard, or those just dreaming vicariously of such a lifestyle and wanting a more vivid idea of what it would be like.

If you are curious about what life aboard may be like, or simply want to live that life from your armchair, pick up this book. It covers everything by relaying stories of normal people who live aboard and have experienced it firsthand. I had been trying to convince my wife to live aboard for years, but had no way to really show her what it was like until I found this book. I am not saying you will achieve similar results, but she agreed to move aboard shortly after reading the book. We ended up living on an 80 foot motorsailer that was a floating Club Med, but I figured it was at least one step in the right direction.The book covers everything from the boat, relationships aboard, the lifestyles and even the rights and laws surrounding living aboard, which is more like a three-ring circus with monkeys running the show, at least here in SF.I highly recommend picking this book up. It is relatively cheap and is a great and comforting read.

There are those of us that "go down to the sea in ships" and others that simply like "messing around in boats", both only an excuse for being on the water. As we immerse ourselves in water- related activities, the cleansing ritual of boating for many becomes obsessive. This obsessiveness often spawns the desire "to cross the final frontier..." not the one in outer space, but at the end of the dock. We want to become a liveaboard so that we too may move "Gently With the Tide". This is a nice compendium of short essays from those with liveaboard experiences tied together gently with editoral skill.It is not specifically a "how to" book yet the experiences related certainly provided a liveaboard education. The value of the book to me is the "feel" reading it engenders. The feeling of what it is like to liveaboard.Read the book. If you like the feeling it leaves you with, you too might be ready to go "Gently With the Tide".