boat living

Lots of people live on boats. If you do a search on the previous posts, there is quite a bit of information on this topic. You mention a "houseboat" ... a houseboat will never make the trip to the islands (probably wouldn't last long outside the intracoastal!) and if you were to have it shipped in on a yacht carrier, it would likely never survive your first day out of the marina, unless it's a good day on the water and you're in one of the rare Lazy Days models with a Bahama hull. Houseboats aren't designed for the open seas; they are content on calm waters of a lake or river. A better alternative might be a trawler or a motor yacht which would have all the amenities that a houseboat would have such as washer/dryer, dishwasher, full size refrigerator/freezer, etc.

I've basically learned from reading others' posts that there are trade offs for living in a marina versus living on the hook. Marinas are convenient, but expensive. Dockage is charged by the foot per day, plus water and electricity. Marinas are hot and humid which means you'll be running your AC a lot. In the alternative, you can live on a mooring pretty cheaply. Last time I researched that avenue, the annual fee was $5.00/foot/year, but you'll have to generate your own power when you need it and probably have a healthy inverter system to keep you going. To get a mooring permit, you have to find a place where you want it to be, make application, buy your own ground tackle and install it after you've been issued the permit. Out on the mooring you'll get the benefit of the breezes and not have to run your AC as much, but you won't have shore power or water which means you'll need a generator and a watermaker. I'm just going from my memory here - search the previous posts and I think you'll find all you are looking for. That's what I did when I was trying to determine whether I wanted to live in a marina or on the hook.

Ang