Life in 8 Feet: A Couple Lives Aboard a Small Sailboat

I, Bernie Harberts, did not use generative AI to write or illustrate this article. Spell check and grammar check, yes. AI, no.

The last thing I do at night on our sailboat Grit before I drop off to sleep is say, “Goodnight Chickadee,” reach over the table that sits on top of the centerboard case and kiss my wife Julia goodnight. “Goodnight, Bubbie,” she’ll say, and we’ll tell each other we love each other, then snuggle down into our berths. She sleeps on the port berth. I’m on the starboard side. My toes will knock against the bottom of the berth, where it extends under the cockpit seats, then I’ll roll against Grit‘s hull. I’ll feel the skin on my back move gently as Grit rolls in the tide and moments later, I’ll be asleep.

In the morning, we’ll wake up and the Get Dressed Dance begins. Because Grit is so tight below, we get dressed one at a time.

Julia gets up first, puts on her clothes and goes into the cockpit to greet the day. Then I get dressed and Julia comes back below. Instead of sitting down on the settees that we sleep on, we change settees. That allows me to sit next to the galley so I can make coffee, and she can sit down next to the navigation station so she can start studying video we’ve shot of the wild ponies the day before, or write up a post for her ConsideringAnimals.com blog.

Divided by a Table and a Tube

Grit is a snug home. Grit is a Nimble 24. She’s 25 feet long and that length is divided into three roughly 8-foot-long sections:

• The cockpit
• The main cabin
• The foredeck forward of the mast

Aside from sailing, watching the sun go down, or coming and going, we don’t spend much time in the cockpit or on the foredeck. Life on a sailboat exposes you to the elements 24 hours a day, so for the vast majority of the day, we spend our time below in Grit‘s cabin.

Grit‘s main cabin is 8 feet long by 6 feet wide — 48 square feet total, or 1% of the average new American home. That averages out to 24 square feet each for Julia and me.

It’s low, too. The cabin comes collar-bone high to me — I’m 5’7″ — which means there’s no standing headroom. As the boat designer Nathanael Herreshoff said, “If you want headroom, go outside.” We’ve learned to pull on our pants sitting down. Not having headroom isn’t a big deal. You’re going to be sitting down on a boat most of the day anyway. Even at anchor on a calm day, the steady motion pulsing through the boat naturally encourages you to assume the most stable position possible, which is sitting or lying down.

Life in 8 Feet

The main thing that determined how we occupied the space was how we divided up the chores. I cooked, washed dishes and stowed the cooking gear. Julia prepped food — slicing garlic, cutting cabbage, peeling apples.

That division isn’t about gender. It’s about Grit‘s layout.

Grit is a centerboard sailboat, meaning she has a retractable keel that folds up into a case occupying the middle of the cabin. Our drop-leaf table sits on top of that case. When the leaves are up, the table is two feet wide by two feet long — just enough room for two bowls of pasta and a deck of cards. That table dictates where Julia and I sit, which dictates our chores, which, in turn, dictates our physical relationship on board.

Doing the Sideways Crab Shuffle

There’s an unwritten rule on a small boat that what you need is just out of reach. Take the spare battery for my phone. When I can’t find it, I announce to Julia that I’m looking for it. Julia, who’s sitting opposite me, has a look and, often as not, says, “I don’t see it.”

So the hunt begins. I get up, step over the metal centerboard tube, turn sideways, sidle past Julia — who has to lean back so my butt doesn’t hit her in the face — and crab walk down the 18-inch “hallway” that connects Grit‘s main cabin to the forepeak, the triangular section under the foredeck.

That’s where we store all the gear that won’t fit under the settees — our duffel bags, extra blankets, cabbage, apples and carrots, spare line and warm clothes.

I’ll rummage around in the surplus Army rucksack that I used while riding my mules from North Carolina to Idaho, find the charger I’m looking for, then reverse-crab-shuffle past Julia and take my place on my berth.

Rusty Rings

Earlier this week, as I was holding Julia’s hand, I looked down at our fingers and caught a glimpse of our homemade wedding rings. Instead of buying gold ones from a jeweler, I had made ours from t-post clips that I bent into ring shapes using the pins that hold our box blade onto the back of the tractor. They’re zinc-plated and have served us well for years.

Then I saw something else, something I’d never seen before. The skin on our ring fingers, where it pressed against the rings, was orange. Living afloat in the salty air was having subtle effects that only showed up after two weeks. It was rusting our homemade wedding rings.

For a split second, I thought about taking off my ring. I didn’t.

Instead, I wrote this poem:

Our wedding rings are rusty 
In the salty ocean air
Turning our fingers orange
For everyone to see 
that I used t post clips
Instead of my credit card
The day before she said
I will.

Time Aboard

Most nights, except for the night of the gale, we play cards across Grit‘s green drop-leaf table. For Gin Rummy, Julia will count out the cards: “1, 2…10 and one for you.” And we’ll play, reshuffle and I’ll deal. Then comes Crazy Eights, at which Julia routinely whips my ass.

Then there was the epic, statistically wondrous game of Crazy Eights. We ran the deck without drawing a card. By luck, for once, I won. We looked up the odds of running Crazy Eights without taking a card: 1 in 27,000.

And so our days on board go — pleasantly reading, napping, writing, sorting notes, playing cards and writing blog posts like Julia’s piece about the skull and the black widow or the gale we survived.

How Proximity Has Changed Our Energy

Every person and every couple radiates a specific type of energy.

It might be a caffeinated energy — buzz, buzz, buzz — where two people are hopped up and do great together but need lots of room between them, the kind a big house with separate bathrooms, living rooms, dens and bonus rooms affords.

Or it might be a natural energy, the type of always-on-the-go energy that some people are just born with. No Red Bull, no Starbucks, just that self-brewed rocket sauce that feeds successful careers, hobbies and award-winning gardens.

In the case of Julia and me, she’s the naturally buzzy one. Always ready for a dog walk, a hike or a ride around the hay field. Her close friends call her Jiggy Julia. I’m more laid back, action interspersed with naps.

Aboard Grit, those two energies merged into something calmer — an observational state quietly nourished by hours watching ponies together from sand dunes during the day, then talking over what we’d learned that night over a bowl of pasta and a game of cards.

Living in such close physical quarters made us intertwine with each other all day long. We developed a ballet-like energy that makes you slow down and think where your partner’s foot is as you step over them to get your battery charger. Or fill the percolator from a gallon jug making sure not to spill water on the settee your loved one is going to spend the night on. Or balance the cook pot on the stove as you prepare oatmeal.

It was a pleasant meld, two different energies and ways of moving converging into a common energy of two people living exactly the life they want, in tight quarters.

Life After 8 Feet

After almost three weeks living anchored off Shackleford Banks, we’ll be heading home to our normally sized — for us — cabin.

It’ll be great to be back where we don’t have to crab past each other just to go to bed. We’ll be able to take showers again, drink as much water as we want and the rust stains will wash off our ring fingers.

That first night back home, after I brush my teeth, wish Lucky and Diggity goodnight, and turn off the lights, I know just how it’ll go.

I’ll roll over, kiss Julia goodnight and say, “Goodnight Chickadee.”

And as we doze off to sleep, our minds will drift pleasantly back to our snug, simple time living aboard Grit in 8 feet.

Keeping Grit in Place

For a look at how we kept Grit in place through two weeks of shifting winds and tides, read how we tackled anchoring off Shackleford Banks.

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Julia’s side of the voyage at Saddle Under the Stars:

• March
• April
• May

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