Roger's Home Journal

The Meaning of Life on a Boat

By Roger Faris

Please excuse me for straying from the usually landlocked realm of home improvement topics. I'm compelled to put my oar in the water on the live-aboard boat issue. Many years ago my friends and I moored our old tugboat at the end of a dock owned by Virginia Bizazza Ross. It was a beautiful place to live. The dock extended beyond the private property line into waters owned by the State, so Mrs. Ross used some of our monthly moorage fees to make lease payments to the State of Washington. Such underwater property leases are as common as dogfish and have a long history around the shores of Lake Union and many other bodies of water.

Jennifer Belcher, the current Washington State Land Commissioner and head of the Department of Natural Resources (DNR), recently decided that living on a boat over DNR controlled mud is not a water dependent use. Belcher has come up with an interpretation of State law that has the appeal and odor of a whale that's spent several weeks on a beach. In a virtual shark attack on people who love the water, she forced several marina lease-holders to drop the boom on their live-aboard tenants.

Belcher refers to people who've lived for many years at well-regulated marinas as "trespassers." It's completely obvious that mooring a boat is a water dependent activity. Belcher apparently objects to the amount of time some people spend on their boats. She thinks that "weekend boaters" are somehow more deserving.

When Virginia Bizazza Ross was alive she attended many meetings which dealt with waterfront issues. She was no jellyfish, and would confront elected officials or any other landlubbers who might float an idea that should be keel-hauled. In this case she would certainly want to know the reasons for making boaters walk the plank.

If the problem is water pollution, then a severe crackdown on anyone who pollutes would be the fair and appropriate remedy. We have strong laws to protect our marine environment. The infrequent violators of these laws are likely to be people who occasionally visit their boats, rather than the ones who use their boat as a home. The live-aboard folks at local marinas are very aware that they must be role models with regard to protecting water quality. If the real problem is jealousy of an affordable and beautiful way of living, then someone needs to get a life. Or just get a boat!

To avoid a whirlpool of litigation and further disruption of moorage arrangements, we need answers to more questions which would have been posed by Virginia Bizazza Ross: How do you define "living" on a boat? Can the boaters declare that they actually live in their cars, or on the street, and just happen to spend a great deal of time aboard? Does the problem have something to do with sleeping on a boat? Will we need special DNR agents to determine if someone has fallen asleep on their boat? Will these agents paddle kayaks, or patrol in gunboats? Will the state allow taking a short nap?

Is this all some strange fallout from that movie about being "Sleepless in Seattle" (filmed on a Lake Union houseboat that floats over DNR controlled mud)? Is there any connection to the local caffeine craze? Since this is the beginning of election season, is it possible that launching a torpedo at live-aboard boaters is being seen as an effective campaign issue? Will a misfire sink the Belcher campaign?

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