The SWiss Army Boat

All the tools, all the time!

The SWiss Army Boat

The way I look at it, sea-steading is staking a way of life to the sea. It doesn't have to mean at sea, or even on-board a boat. But the sea is part and parcel of the homestead's environment, resources and possibilities.

Anke and I choose to live aboard, loving the mobility and access to a thousand corners of our vast archipelago. The shoresides and intertidal zones, in our approach, are every bit as important as the sea itself. For our tastes, one without the other would be a sore diminishment.

But we've nowhere near arrived at our goals.

Here's the kind of fantasy we are working toward:

We pull into this year's autumn camp, one of a hundred options, in time for the late summer run of salmon. It's a place we know and love, having returned many times over the years. The full moon is rising, chasing the sunset, as we drop anchor in the protected cove - proof against equinoctial gale and storm. In a few minutes we're rowing  ashore, eager to check on the garden.

We listen, on our way, to the plash! of salmon pooled and leaping off the flats of a small river. They're females, it's believed, slapping down on their sides to loosen their eggs. A faint echo returns off the steep mountain face bordering one side of the meadows, mingling with the sounds of a freshet cascade.

Spawning salmon will soon fill the river. Dying, their bodies nourish a complex chain of energies. But we're evolutionary newcomers, here... for us the water is tainted. We chose this place in part for the waterfall, close at hand. Too steep for salmon, it supplies us with fresh water for drink and the work ahead.

Our guerrilla garden is thriving, though you couldn't tell, to look at it. In fact, if you can spot it at all, you've got an educated eye. It's diffuse, spread out over the alluvial fan and into the fringes of the woods. Most of the plants are indigenous to SE, though we've concentrated and encouraged them, here. Others, here and there are select, hardy exotics, known to fare well in this clime. They need occasional help to keep going in the long run, but can fend for themselves for years. Potatoes, rhubarb, kale. We've had some loss to deer and bear, but there's plenty to go around, and nothing special to attract them.

 

At next morning's high, we slide the boat ashore, neaping her for Swiss army maneuvers; from the hold, we unfold an array of contraptions. Some have been flattened for storage, their hinges and pins letting them collapse from three to two dimensions.  Assembled, the following tools are at our disposal:

• Big Tarp - This gets pitched over the small clearing near the cascade, and among convenient trees. It will let us work in all weather without having to 'gear up' in PVC bibs and jackets.
  
  
• Big Table - Cobbled together from the boat's sliding seat/workbench, table, and hatches (now open under biminies) and fixed along lashed up supports from on-site spruce spars. It'll serve to process fish or game, or as a workbench for this or that project (carpentry, say, or metalwork).
  
  
• Food-Dryer - This is the biggest item, and took the most ingenuity. Unfolded, it's 2' x 4' x 4', with a single, pitched roof. Inside are up to 32 shelves of stainless steel, perforated sheet metal. These make easy to clean, non-degrading drying racks. 
  
  The whole affair is reversible; with the clean side in, it dries fruits, vegetables, seaweeds and seeds en masse. Smoky side in, it's a smoker for salmon and maybe venison.
  
  A collapsible, wood-burning campstove provides heat to both in the cool, often damp autumn weather, and smoke for the smoker. Plus it handles our small cooking needs while in camp. Coffee! Or maybe by now we're addicted to roasted dandelion root?
  
  
• Firepit and Oven - This is our chance to do some real baking... stone and clay or mud form the body. Some years it's more involved, some less. This year, it's a simple cavern; we make a fire in the oven, heat it up, scoop out the fire and bake. The firepit will produce a steady stream of coals for pressure canning at consistent heat.
  
  
• Laundry Station - At a wide distance from the creek. Our huge stock-pot, wringer and drying lines let us do the bedding - a big job that's hard to tackle when on the move.
  
  
• Greenhouse? - A small greenhouse helps get some fall starts going, babysits a batch or two of wine, keeps us in sprouts in the cooling weather.

By afternoon, we're all set up. We spend the afternoon cutting wood for the coming days. 

By the end of a couple of pleasant weeks, we'll have topped off our stores for the approaching winter, with dried or canned fish and venison, and dried berries, mushrooms, greens and tubers half- and wholly wild. The garden's been expanded, perhaps, and fertilized with kelp and mulch; ready for another spell on its own. Several pending projects on the boat have been seen to.

We break camp, cleaning and collapsing down to its shadow phase. Like the blades of a Swiss Army knife, we fold them back into the holds. The oven is broken up and dispersed along with most signs of our presence here. When spring tides run high, we float again and sail on under the new moon.

None of this fantasy runs too much different than what we're already doing, but the scale would be ever so much more efficient. And efficiency means that more and more of our needs are met locally, from sea and shore.

As it is, we throw money at legumes and grains, oils, cheese and peanut butter. We've a small, on-board dryer for wild forage, light fishing gear and pickling jar. One carboy and a few bags for young wine. Relative to our sea-steading hopes, we're living hand-to-mouth, supplemented by Costco.

But we dream...