This past week we got confirmation that Dave is going to have to have his hip replaced. He’s been having trouble with it for a while and we’ve put the surgery off as long as we could.
So this week, I wanted to talk a bit about how you arrange something like this when you live on a boat full-time. Simply put, Dave can’t have the surgery and go straight from the hospital to the boat, even at a dock.
I asked Dave’s doctor how long we’d need to live ashore and explained that we’d have to rent a place, so I needed a realistic assessment, not an optimistic one. Oftentimes, doctors will give “best case” estimates – but if you have to move ashore and make plans for the boat, it’s important to ask detailed questions.
The doctor, a boater, said that while it’s possible that Dave could return to the boat in a month, two months was a far safer bet given Dave’s age and condition.
The next factor we had to consider is that Dave’s surgery is scheduled for August 11 – right as the heart of hurricane season (August 15 to October 15) hits for this area. We don’t want to have to hurricane prep the boat while Dave is recovering!
Putting the boat on the hard is the safest from a hurricane standpoint and won’t inconvenience us since we won’t be aboard. And she’s due for a bottom job. So Barefoot Gal will be hauled out and put in storage a week before his surgery. This year is forecast to be extremely active for hurricanes (and has been with three storms already!) so we’ll err on the side of caution and leave the boat on the hard until the end of October.
Next, it’s tough to find affordable furnished rental housing here in the Florida Keys. I turned to Facebook and asked for help finding a place. We ended up with several good options.
Finally, while we had planned for the haul out expense to do a bottom job this fall, the boat storage and rental housing weren’t in the budget. It’s imperative to have an emergency fund for major unexpected expenses, whether they are medical, boat repairs or a family emergency. We’ll be tapping into ours.
We’re lucky, as we get to plan for the surgery. But the same considerations would come into play for a sudden illness or injury. Build an emergency fund so that if something happens, money isn’t an immediate issue. Then, if something happens, get a realistic assessment of when you can return to the boat, figure out the best place for it while you’re gone, and find a place to live. Then you can concentrate on recuperating.
While we’re not exactly happy that Dave has to have this surgery, we’ll be glad to get him back to walking!
Follow up: Dave’s surgery got moved up to mid-July, and we ended up staying in the apartment until mid-December, due to unexpected boat work. Five months, not two. Dave probably could have moved back aboard at four months, but I think it would have been difficult before then. The big problems were getting in/out of the dinghy and getting around on deck.
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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.
Melissa Gallagher says
Hi Carolyn,
We actually experienced this last year, we live on our 42 ft trawler about 9 months out of the year as we are on Long Island, NY…my Husband Chris had to have his 3rd major back surgery last Oct, the plan was for him to go to a rehabilitation facility for about a month after his surgery to recoup, well that didn’t work out that way, the place he went to turned out to be a complete nightmare and he pretty much called me up the second day telling me he was standing outside and needed to be picked up, I didn’t blame him nor did we have another choice, and all he wanted to do was come back to the boat, which is in a marina…I was petrified, but we did our best, he did his best…spent about a week in bed and then started to go walking around the marina with a walker, now I know this wasn’t the most ideal or smart situation but it is what it is and there was no arguing with him. It was his 3rd surgery, so we sort of knew what to expect, scary though when things change on a dime in such situations…glad all worked out for you and your husband, hope his hip is all healed! You are so right about the emergency fund, that is something we have to work on for the future, thank you for the article! Melissa Gallagher