So many of you have asked about what it's been like for us, and our marriage, to move aboard a boat in the middle of winter.
We've been toying with ways to show it to you best, and luckily our friend David Freid dropped in after a particularly big snowstorm to film a short doc about what it's been like for us.
Freid is an old friend who, in a former life, traveled the world with us when Jon and I ran a nonprofit in conflict zones together. (THAT was good training for living on a boat, to be sure.) He's seen us at our best and our worst, so we were delighted to have him barge in on our tiny space.
A few of behind-the-scenes extra features: Jon MAY have actually been still drunk or hungover while filming those outdoor shots... The term drunken sailor doesn't come from nowhere. Also, I have so few clothes on the boat that I realized I had accidentally ran out of clean pants the day of filming.
I had to make an emergency ferry run to the mall across the river. I called Freid in a panic as he was driving over, yelling "Stall the crew, I have no pants!" That will probably make it into the bloopers at a later time. #boatlife.
By the way, all the work that Freid does for MEL is gorgeous. I've been jealously watching him globe trotting for the last six months shooting things, and they're delicious to watch.
Last time he stayed on the boat, he slept in the captain's berth and had dreams he'd been buried alive in a coffin, so maybe if we offer him a spot in the main cabin with a double bed-sized berth, he'll come back and film again in the summer when the boat (and our coupledom) looks a little more enviable.
And hooray! Our story has already been featured on Tiny House Blog, one of my favorite small living publications. It was so fun to stumble across my husband's face while surfing the interwebs.