The Seaburbs : ‘Live-Aboards’ Say They’ve Found the Good Life, Free From the Confines and Hassles Onshore . . . but Serenity Has Its Price

When Barbara Kelley wed an Inglewood dentist in the boom years of the 1950s, the California dream for many young couples was a small stucco home, a Chevrolet, perhaps a lemon tree in the back yard.

Kelley and her husband opted for a different dream: the Gypsy Clipper, a 52-foot wooden-hulled schooner with a mahogany interior and brass portholes. In time, they even cultivated a small garden--a few herbs, a lemon tree--on the dock alongside their floating home.

But Vernon Kelley died more than a decade ago. The tree is long gone. And at age 73, Barbara Kelley remains aboard the Gypsy Clipper in the same marina in Wilmington she has occupied for four decades, a potful of chives still marking the threshold. She harbors no thoughts whatsoever of moving ashore to some landlubbers’ notion of a retirement cottage.

“A house, no matter how large it is, is a box to me,” she said. “And I don’t like being boxed in.”

This stubborn insistence on staying afloat is what makes Kelley a “live-aboard,” that resilient breed of Southern Californian that eschews dry land, bathtubs and closet space in favor of the freedom of life afloat.

Hundreds of boats- cum- homes dot the South Bay’s coastal pockets and harbors, from the working-class docks of Wilmington to the upscale marinas of Redondo Beach. These are the dwellings of retirees, professional couples, singles, even families with young children, bound by the conviction that a boat equals freedom.

Now, with defense and aerospace layoffs battering the local economy, some marinas report an upswing in inquiries from landlubbers curious if they could save money by moving aboard boats. Marina operators warn that on the contrary, living afloat can prove more expensive than staying ashore.

Still, for residents of a region beset by car-choked roadways, tainted air and fears of crime and pink slips, life aboard a boat can seem to be the 1990s equivalent of Walden Pond: a simpler lifestyle, free of clutter, a regimen that tests your stamina and rewards individuality.

After all, a boat is an island, set apart from the continent--if only by a few feet.

“At any given moment, we could drop the dock lines and go, if we really wanted to,” said retired aerospace engineer Al Erd, 70, who lives with his wife on a 43-foot sailboat in Redondo Beach.

“It’s that escape route that’s there in the back of your mind. Always. Even if you never do leave,” said Tom Sullivan, 36, who shares a Redondo Beach houseboat with his golden retriever, Ashley.

The majority of live-aboards admit to keeping their dock lines secured most days, especially as they grow older, venturing out only occasionally to Santa Catalina Island or the Baja California coast. They usually stay wedged in boat slips in one of a multitude of South Bay marinas, coexisting among the recreational boaters.

The boat dwellers often form a kind of floating neighborhood, much like homeowners who share a suburban cul-de-sac.

But on weekend mornings, they wake, not to the whine of lawn mowers and leaf blowers, but to the cry of gulls and the occasional chugging of an outboard engine.

They are lulled to sleep at night, not by sirens and whirring freeways, but by the slapping of halyards against metal masts and the soft creaking of boat lines.

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That is the romantic’s view, of course. Veterans are quick to caution that amid all that fresh air and those gull lullabies, boats saddle their owners with endless chores.

“Boats are love affairs--and boats are 90% maintenance. You either do it yourself or you pay someone to do it,” said John L. Quick Jr., 70, who has lived on boats in Wilmington for 39 years and has watched short-timers come and go. “People don’t realize that 90% maintenance.”

One long-timer who knows that well is Barbara Kelley, who spent a recent morning perched precariously above the water on a single wire next to the fir bowsprit, an extension of the bow.

She labored over the bowsprit, sanding the varnish by hand. The next day, she sat on the wire again, applying new varnish to prevent the wood from cracking.

Over 40 years, she has grown intimately familiar with every bolt, bearing and joint of her floating home. When a visitor admired the gold-painted bronze letters spelling out “Gypsy Clipper” across the stern, she responded briskly: “Oh, yes. They’re tough to get off. Small screws.”

Since her husband’s death, she has done virtually all upkeep except for the once-a-year “haul out,” when the boat is lifted out of the water so its bottom can be repainted.

Even though the abundant woodwork consumes can after can of varnish, Kelley has no plans to trade in the 1937 Marconi-rigged schooner for more modern fiberglass. (“Oh, gawd, I wouldn’t even think of it.”) She remembers spending one night on a fiberglass boat, when the unfamiliar “boom” of water slapping the sonorous hull kept her awake. “I didn’t sleep a wink. It was never that way on my boat.”

Besides, this is the boat she sailed with her husband, and his essence, she says, remains aboard. She pulled out a photo of a handsome, laughing man in a motoring cap. Another photo shows a younger Kelley aboard the boat at Catalina Island, dressed as a mermaid draped with seaweed.

She leaves her boat every morning for a two-mile stroll past the marinas and oil wells that line Wilmington’s southern shore. She eats breakfast at the Yacht Haven marina cafe, where the waitresses bring her “Barbara’s special”: one egg over hard, home fries, two pieces of bacon (“crisp!”), toast, boysenberry preserves, a slice of onion and a jalapeno pepper.

Then she walks down the dock again, ready to fetch the varnish and get to work.

“I really feel good when I work on the boat. Boy, you feel great. I love this boat, and I just like seeing it come up and look good. . . . I just think I’d die if I couldn’t work on the boat.”

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Bill and Nancy Dewgaw spend their days in the towering Transamerica Center in Downtown Los Angeles. He works on the 19th floor in operations accounting. She works on the 16th floor in human resources administration.

When the day winds down, they head down the Harbor Freeway to their home in the suburbs: a 38-foot diesel-powered trawler called the Sandcastle, moored at Cabrillo Marina in San Pedro.

“It’s a complete change from our work life,” said Bill Dewgaw, 60.

Compared to Kelley’s wood schooner, the Sandcastle is decidedly modern. It boasts a galley replete with microwave and spice racks, a guest room/study, houseplants, stereo equipment and two “heads” or bathrooms.

Until 1987, the Dewgaws lived ashore, but now they are committed to the live-aboard life. They revel in the sense of being free to break away. “On a nice, sunny, summer weekend, we just take our house to Catalina,” Bill Dewgaw said.

Even their Siamese cat, Joss, relishes life afloat, occasionally leaping ashore to go hunting, not for mice, but for the small crabs that scurry across the docks.

There are drawbacks, related primarily to plumbing and space.

Nancy Dewgaw, 50, still wistful for the bathtub she left behind ashore, has been known to visit relatives toting a bottle of Mr. Bubble.

When she roasted a 12-pound turkey for Thanksgiving, she had to break the breastbone so that the fowl would fit in the on-board oven. They have taken to leaving clothes at the cleaners for long stretches to relieve the strain on their cramped closets.

Many live-aboards trade up in search of space, much as a homeowner might exchange a condominium for a two-bedroom house.

Former sailboat dweller Sullivan expanded into a 34-foot houseboat in Redondo Beach’s King Harbor. His old sailboat buddies called him a turncoat, but he likes the spaciousness of the white-walled living room accented with oak trim, the gray-and-white kitchen with its parquet floor, the deck where he is thinking of installing a Jacuzzi.

The centerpiece of his home: a 100-gallon saltwater aquarium that he installed in the living room’s west wall. Seawater from far below the houseboat is pumped into the aquarium and out again.

Sullivan spent months changing pumps and mopping the floor before he got it right.

“This is probably the most dangerous thing you could have on a boat,” he said. “What I’ve got, in effect, here is a hose running into my boat. If it clogs up, I’ve sunk my boat.”

But now fish swim lazily past the glass. Starfish, sea urchins, assorted slugs, even an anchovy-eating octopus have resided in Sullivan’s floating living room.

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In time, some live-aboards do move ashore.

Bill Hatt left his powerboat home in Wilmington for a Long Beach house because he needed more office space for his business. He is still struggling to adjust to life ashore, the nighttime discord of traffic and car alarms.

Now Deborah and Nick Sarris of San Pedro, parents of two small children, are wondering if it is time to move off their 32-foot Lotus sailboat in San Pedro’s Holiday Harbour.

“We’re just now getting to the point that we’d love to have a house with a yard, for our little boy to run around in,” said Deborah Sarris, 35, who joined Nick on the sailboat when they were married 3 1/2 years ago.

The boat’s quarters have grown more crowded since then. Energetic Andrew is 2 1/2, and Halie--which the Sarrises say is Greek for “sea dweller”--is 6 months old. Deborah stores disposable diapers in a locker hidden behind the main cabin settee, and Andrew’s toys hang in a knit hammock in a corner.

Andrew has been taught to play in the boat’s cockpit, and his parents have developed a sixth sense for his whereabouts, much like parents who live on a busy street.

Nick, 40, says he doesn’t mind the closeness, because he gets to watch his children change and grow. “I’m just real big on family,” he said, “and I just really like this lifestyle.”

Inclement weather does not dampen their enthusiasm. When it rains, the Sarrises simply close the hatch and enjoy the rhythm of raindrops beating above them. When the wind blows, the boat leans as though someone is pushing it to one side, Deborah says.

“We’ve gotten used to standing straight when everything else is leaning.”

Even as they ponder moving, the Sarrises describe the placid summer evenings when they dine aboard beneath the wide-open skies and throw bread crumbs to the ducks.

Sullivan describes a phenomenon he calls “slip sailing,” when a few friends drop by to share a few beers and enjoy the scenery.

“You’re on the water. You’re outside. You’re not having to do a thing.”

And for a true-blue boat dweller, even one still tied to the dock, that is the definition of heaven.

4 Who Live Aboard

Map shows where Tom Sullivan, the Dewgaws, the Sarrises and Barbara Kelley are moored.

* Tom Sullivan, Redondo Beach, 34-foot houseboat,

* Bill and Nancy Dewgaw, San Pedro, 38-foot trawler,

* Deborah, Nick, Andrew and Halie Sarris, San Pedro, 32-foot sailboat,

* Barbara Kelley, Wilmington, 52-foot wood schooner.

The Cost of Living Aboard

Boat living is not the economic panacea it might seem. Here is an estimated monthly bill for the major costs of living on a 40-foot sailboat at Cabrillo Marina in San Pedro. The boat owner is making monthly payments on a used $45,000 boat.

Boat payment: $312

Slip rental: $326

Live-aboard fee (includes storage locker, water, electricity, parking): $130

Maintenance, including regular painting and hull cleaning: $125

Property tax, insurance: $110

TOTAL: $1,003

Sources: Cabrillo Marina, Blue Pacific Yacht Sales