Although I loved doing that, it was all new and yachty, too yachty in fact. I've moved on. The prospect of being on an expensive yacht, lashed to a marina full of other expensive yachts, leaves me cold. I want / need, to do it much cheaper and preferably away from yachty people and marinas!
I want to hide away in hard to get to places, way up a river in water depths that would stop anything vaguely yachty from entering. Places way too unglamorous for your average motorcruiser jock.
So, with these desires sailing about in my head, I discovered the "Shantyboat". The shanty boat was endemic on the Mississippi and other big US rivers during the Depression years of the 1930's. The socio-economic context is the key to understanding the shantyboat; the people that lived on shantyboats were invariably struggling financially because of unemployment caused by aglobal economic downturn. But they were also resourceful; their boats were scrabbled together from found materials, commonly from timber that washed down when the river was in flood. The engineless boats were drifted or rowed downstream, whirling before the eddies and currents, bends and rapids, with navigation,skills honed by harsh reality of life. The crew, usually family groups got by fishing, shooting game and trading along the various rivers. The rustic utility of the shantyboat is worn like a badge of honour, even today.
For contemporary rivermen, the lifestyle is followed by choice and necessity as a two-fingered salute to modern society.
The drive to be a shantyboater has sunk its fangs into my jugular and I want to do it bad. I just want to slip away from home at a moment's notice and get along on a local river and hang out, snoozing, reading, sipping coffee, listening to music.
While hanging out in the seedy corners of the interweb I've discovered a tiny shantyboat design, with barely room for two, easily and cheaply built. It is known as the Harmonica, and the plans have been ordered.
