Let’s face it, most boat yards are dirty places, just packed sand or gravel. We’ve seen a couple that were paved or concrete, but quickly discovered they were out of our price range.
And so we’re in a yard that’s full of sand and gravel. For new readers, we bought a new-to-us boat last spring and immediately put her in storage for the hurricane season.  Now we’re living aboard in a DIY boat yard as we’re taking care of some maintenance and other projects before putting her back in the water.
Here, they put tarps under each boat, but we still found that we were tracking a lot of sand aboard. Admittedly, the boat isn’t looking really clean yet — we’ve been focused on cleaning up the inside and finding/fixing the propane leak in the stove so we could actually have a real meal (and, I admit, coffee in the morning).
Still, we didn’t want to track more sand onto the boat and into our living area. Not only is it messy, it’s also hard on the gel coat.
Our first trip to the dollar store saw me buy four “welcome mats” — two rubber and two carpet. Admittedly, none of these are high quality and I don’t expect them to last forever. But we didn’t want to use good rugs and ruin them in just a few short weeks.
The two rubber mats are at the bottom and top of the ladder, and they catch the worst of the sand. We also take off our shoes at the bottom of the ladder — lots of that gravel catches in the treads.
Then the two carpet rugs are on either side of the door to the cockpit, with the one in the cockpit also getting pressed into service as a project mat, and the one from inside often ending up as a kneeling mat for whatever work is going on in the cockpit. While the rugs get grimy, it keeps us from marring the cockpit with various boat parts and projects.
Total cost was less than $5 and is keeping our living area much more clean! Now if I could say the same about myself . . .
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Carolyn Shearlock has lived aboard full-time for 17 years, splitting her time between a Tayana 37 monohull and a Gemini 105 catamaran. She’s cruised over 14,000 miles, from Pacific Mexico and Central America to Florida and the Bahamas, gaining firsthand experience with the joys and challenges of life on the water.
Through The Boat Galley, Carolyn has helped thousands of people explore, prepare for, and enjoy life afloat. She shares her expertise as an instructor at Cruisers University, in leading boating publications, and through her bestselling book, The Boat Galley Cookbook. She is passionate about helping others embark on their liveaboard journey—making life on the water simpler, safer, and more enjoyable.
PhyllisPardee says
Feeling your pain!! We too are in a boatyard having some major bottom work done….soda blasted to get off years of old paint from previous owners. My floors have been a mess with dust from the residual after clean up…and of course we also left the doors open for some fresh air….Love your ideas, we used old towels as well as leaving shoes outside. Gonna visit the Dollar Store in town today!
Peter Robertson says
We appreciate your candor on your latest boating adventure….
The Boat Galley says
There’s no such thing as a totally bad experience . . . it can always serve as a blog post!