THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, March 18, 1996 TAG: 9603160068
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY PAUL CLANCY, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Long : 211 lines
AT 3 A.M. as Thar Be Dragons, a 42-foot ketch, rounded Cape Fear on an outbound run to Charleston, a gentle sea suddenly turned angry.
As Val Lippa desperately reefed the sails, his wife, Kas, fought the wheel. She realized that the surrounding blackness was not the night sky but towering swells. Waves began crashing over the port bow.
Down below, everything that wasn't secured was crashing. Sugar canister, pictures, cutlery, toaster, television. Apparently terrified by continuous sheets of lightning, their cat wrapped itself around Val's ankles and refused to budge.
``Anyone who says they're not frightened when a storm hits, they're lying,'' says Kas. ``Like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz, I kept saying, `I want to go home. I want to go home.' And then I realized, Hey, this is home.''
It was and it is.
In good times and bad, Thar Be Dragons has been their residence for eight years, the place where they hang their hats and set their table. Their neighborhood consists of floating docks at Norfolk's Bay Point Marina where about 35 other families make their homes.
They sold their house in Springfield, Va., gave their children first choice of furnishings and sold the rest at a yard sale.
Kas is a retired fitness trainer, but Val arises every day at 5 a.m., then drives, bikes or, occasionally, runs the 10 miles to the Naval Base where he is a commander aboard an amphibious assault ship.
Like several hundred other families in watery Hampton Roads, they are live-aboards, part of a small but growing fleet of Americans who are putting down anchors instead of roots.
Most of the bigger marinas in the area have several slips occupied by live-aboards, people with jobs, with children, with community ties. Most are not particularly wealthy. Instead, they have saved for decades, fixed up older boats or simply sold their houses and taken the plunge.
It can be confining and, on stormy, wintry days, downright miserable.
But there are enough glorious moments, seamless mornings or evenings afloat, running with dolphins, firing up the grill, rafting up with friends, lying on deck under the stars, when it seems that nothing could be better.
``I'm not a real religious person, but when we're out in the water and it's just us, I feel closer to God than in a church,'' Kas says. ``If you're quiet enough to feel it, it will just wrap its arms around you.''
Jenny and Connie Baker are not so thrilled with life aboard. They're the children of Brent and Debbie Baker of Stockton, Calif., who traded their house for life aboard a homemade, 42-foot steel-hulled sailboat. They lived for several years near San Francisco, then a marina near Waikiki Beach in Honolulu. Their older sister got off the boat there and joined the Air Force.
Two years ago they took off again, this time for a ``vacation'' in the South Pacific.
In the Torres Strait north of Australia, after stops in places like Tonga and Fiji, they decided one day the winds were just too nice to turn around - and kept going. Indonesia, Thailand, Sri Lanka, Yemen, Egypt, Israel, Cyprus, Malta, Portugal, Bermuda and, finally, Norfolk.
``We went on vacation and never got back,'' says Connie with a wry smile.
They've lived at Taylor's Landing Marina since August. David Baker, a shipfitter and welder, works on a tugboat hauling railroad cars on a barge between the Eastern Shore and Norfolk. Debbie Baker is a bank teller. After years of home schooling, Jenny is a senior at Lake Taylor High School, Connie an eighth-grader at Azalea Gardens Middle School.
This is where they may end up, at least for now. David has found plenty of work, Debbie likes the pace, the girls have made friends. Even though she'd prefer a house, Jenny says, ``It's nice to be somewhere.''
Somewhere'' in Hampton Roads might be Bay Point or Taylor's Landing in Norfolk, Tidewater Yacht or Scott's Creek marinas in Portsmouth, Willoughby Bay or Marina Shores in Virginia Beach or several smaller places around Hampton Roads. Hampton doesn't permit permanent live-aboards, but many cruisers stop over en route.
Many are Navy families with a preference for transient marinas over transient neighborhoods. Bay Point is home to four Navy commanders and a captain as well as two lawyers, two dentists, a gym owner, a construction crane operator, a police officer and several newly married couples.
Hampton Roads is not a live-aboard mecca, but it has a lot going for it. There's easy access to the Chesapeake Bay, the Intracoastal Waterway and the ocean. Boaters say the weather is the best, for as far north as it is, on the east coast.
All bets were off this winter, one of the worst in memory for live-aboards here, with freezing docks and temperatures so low that moisture in some cabins turned to ice.
Chilled by winter winds, floating in icy water, boats can be cold places where heaters run constantly. ``Our bed was stuck to the hull from freezing condensation,'' laughs Vicki Backes, another marina neighbor.
For fees that depend on size of boat and usage, live-aboards get most of the amenities of home, including restrooms and showers, use of a pool and clubhouse and hookups for water, electricity, phones and cable TV.
Many have lived at local marinas for several years - no less than many home-owning families in transient Hampton Roads. Some use their boats primarily as homes, venturing out of their slips only rarely, if at all. Others go out for weekend cruises or dinners aboard as often as possible.
At Bay Point Marina, a residents' association meets the first Thursday of every month to discuss ``neighborhood'' issues. Residents even have their own neighborhood watch program.
Costs are not much different than a homeowner's. The monthly slip fee in most marinas is about $5 a foot - $200 for a 40-footer - plus a live-aboard charge of about $50. The price normally includes water, use of showers and restrooms and some, but not all, electricity. Like homeowners, live-aboardera buy insurance and pay property taxes.
They live among neighbors in communities that are perhaps less insular than many traditional neighborhoods.
Live-aboards seem to be constantly visiting each other and helping each other, whether it's with engines or radios or trips to the store. On winter nights, with Navy spouses off on cruises, those left at the marina may end up in front of a television with shared popcorn and a video. They say there's a special closeness borne of common interests and needs that never existed in their former communities.
``People say if you live in a house, you have neighbors, but how many neighbors do you really know?'' says Diane Riggs who, with husband Jack, lives a dozen slips away from the Lippas in a spacious 34-foot catamaran, Life's 2 Short. Both work full time for the Federal Aviation Administration.
Conversations with marina neighbors are not always about boats, although they do have much to share: origins, dreams and ultimate destinations. Most have been through adverse conditions. ``We know we're here because we've been there,'' says Jack Riggs.
There can be rough seas in relationships, too, live-aboard couples say. If they're not ready for tight, intimate quarters, even a few weeks on a cruise can be difficult.
``It either improves your relationship or it smashes it,'' says Tom Wilson who, with his wife, Joyce, left Marin County, Calif., on what was to be a one-year cruise five years ago and ended up in Norfolk.
``You can't live this close together for so long and not have your relationship change. In our case it improved tremendously. It makes you focus on the other person. You can't get in the car and go somewhere. You've got to learn to tolerate and care more for each other.''
The Wilsons sailed to San Diego, trucked their 40-foot, 22,000-pound boat overland to Corpus Cristi, then sailed to the East Coast. They talk of wonderful days touring the Florida Keys, Savannah, Washington, D.C., Philadelphia and Boston. They'll never forget sailing past the Statue of Liberty in New York Harbor.
Now it's time to put their boat on the market and head home. ``It's been enough time,'' says Joyce. ``It was Thomas's dream and he's done it now and we can get on with other things.''
Live-aboards worry about having enough space, then realize how little they really need. The rule seems to be: if you have something in storage and haven't used it in three years, get rid of it.
The cure for cramped quarters? Trading up for more space. In boats, the square footage costs can be heart-stopping, as anyone who has seen a half-million-dollar price tag for a new 50-foot cruising yacht can attest. But used boats are another story, especially those needing a little work. Finding a decent cruiser of 37 feet or more and fixing it up can be a lot cheaper than most condos.
And then there are bargains.
Two years ago, a local marina auctioned off Shangri La, a 42-foot, 14-ton tri-cabin power boat and Ted and Anne Floyd bought it for $501. Yes, it was in terrible condition and will take several years and thousands of dollars to restore, including its presently non-working engines. For now, it may not go anywhere. But it's home and they love it.
``We're happier here than in any other lifestyle we've experienced,'' says Anne in the comfort of their 14-foot-wide, mahogany-paneled main cabin.
``You can't get much more waterfront than this'' says Ted. Two years ago they sold their Virginia Beach house and now, far from traffic and neighbors' lawn mowers and home mortgage, relish the serenity and independence.
They say their son, Adam, a ninth-grader at Lake Taylor Middle School, likes the freedom of marina life. He can roller blade to his heart's content in the parking lot and stowaway with his stereo in his almost-soundproof forward stateroom.
They hope to have the boat fully repaired by the time Adam, 15, goes off to college. With their 300-gallon tanks full, they'll head south.
``I don't think we'll ever go back to a house-house,'' Anne says.
The best times on a boat are at anchor in a quiet cove, boaters say. But life at a marina has its good points.
Val Lippa is usually up by 5 a.m., sipping coffee on the covered cockpit, watching the marina slowly wake up. Lights are coming on. Ducks and fishing boats are passing by. Across the way, Navy ships are getting under way. ``Lights playing on the water. . . ,'' he says. ``It's very therapeutic.''
Kas Lippa's time is late evening. Halyards are clinking. Boats are rocking serenely. ``You can hear the groaning of the lines,'' she says. ``You can hear the wind going through the rigging. Somebody could set it to music.''
Val retires July 1 after 29 years in the Navy. ``A hundred and four days and a wake-up,'' is how Kas puts it, meaning when he wakes up on the morning of the 105th day from now he'll be retired.
One fine July morning, as a dawn creeps over Little Creek Harbor, they will turn their floating home into the wind, raise her sails and take off.
They'll spend a couple of months lolling in quiet coves in the Chesapeake, taking their time, relishing days together. Then, as winds cool and shift to the northwest, they'll turn south and go where the wind takes them, possibly around the world.
``They had him for 29 years; I get him for the next 29,'' says Kas.
``I don't ever want a house again,'' she declares, but glances at Val, knowing he doesn't buy all of that dream.
``Eventually, everybody goes ashore,'' he says. MEMO: Independence and freedom are lures for one live-aboard: E3
ILLUSTRATION: [Color Photos]
CHRISTOPHER REDDICK
The Virginian-Pilot
Tom and Joyce Wilson, who live on Blithe Spirit II, left California
on what was to be a one-year cruise five years ago and ended up in
Norfolk.
Connie Baker, 13, looks over homework with her dad, Brent, while mom
Debbie chats on the phone and sister Jenny, 18, does her
assignments.
CHRISTOPHER REDDICK
The Virginian-Pilot
Val and Kas Lippa live on their yacht, Thar Be Dragons, at Bay Point
Marina.
by CNB