Life on a live-aboard

By Michael Tsai
Advertiser Staff Writer

Jennifer Tiernay keeps everything shipshape in the galley aboard the 46-foot sailboat that is home for herself and husband, Ron, in the Ala Wai Yacht Harbor. Photos by Bruce Asato • The Honolulu Advertiser

Jennifer Tiernay takes time to relax and read on the boat where she and husband, Ron, live at the Ala Wai yacht harbor. During bad weather, boat dwellers in the small community watch out for each other.

Finding a slip to call home Two state-run harbors on O'ahu — Ala Wai and Ke'ehi — accommodate live-aboard residents. There also are private facilities. For more information, visit the state's Division of Boating and Ocean Recreation Web site.

When Ron and Jennifer Tiernay left their dream home in the mountains of Colorado for a dream boat at Ala Wai Small Boat Harbor, they took with them the barest of essentials.

The tools they needed for Ron's maintenance business. The musical equipment was necessary for their soon-to-be revived musical careers — and even then the biggest stuff had to be left behind.

The furniture was nothing but dead weight.

"Everything we have is small and compact, because space is at a premium," Ron says happily.

For the last year and a half, home for the Tiernays has been a 46-foot multihull sailboat on the 500 row of the harbor. The cozy, wood-accented main hull is simply appointed with a small gas stove, a mini-refrigerator and microwave. Below is a small room that houses a drum kit, some other musical equipment, and the computer that Jennifer uses to maintain her Web page.

It's the second time the Tiernays have made their home on the water. Before their stint in Colorado, the couple spent 13 years living off Sarasota, Fla., playing music up and down the coast, and raising a son. ("We asked all our relatives not to give metal Tonka Toys as gifts," Jennifer said. "Everything ends up overboard and sinks.")

"People who enjoy boating and living on a boat are different types of folks," Jennifer says. "We enjoy it, but we understand that it's not for everybody."

On a gray, stormy afternoon last week, as the Tiernays greeted a dripping drop-in visitor, the interior of the boat smelled pleasantly of the morning's breakfast. The couple, warm and dry, seemed inclined toward a sleepy day indoors but Ron, surveying the wind-mottled Van Gogh ocean outside his windows, was concerned about how his neighbor's boat would fare as the storm got worse.

"The wind has shifted," he said. "That'll give me a chance to work on some of his lines."

Indeed, while so-called live-aboards are notoriously independent, live-and-let-live folk, they are also — by ethic and necessity — generally great neighbors.

"People who live on boats really stick together," Jennifer said. "We all watch out for each other, especially at times like these, when the weather is really bad."

There are 129 slips (docking spaces) for live-aboard residents at Ala Wai, and another 35 at Ke'ehi Small Boat Harbor.

Within these small communities live doctors and janitors, young families and aging singles. Houseboats are not permitted (although a handful were grandfathered in at Ke'ehi), and most live-aboards make homes on small sail or motor yachts.

"There's a perception from non-boaters that people who live on boats are kind of strange and reclusive," said Ala Wai harbormaster Meghan Statts. "But the truth is they're very active. This is their home and their community, and they all look out for each other."

Most Ala Wai residents make use of community bathrooms and showers. A few people get their mail at the harbor; most use a post-office box. Many residents use bicycles to get around.

While many live-aboards eventually move ashore to raise kids or simply to expand their closet space, many others grow roots in the hydroponic harbor waters.

Bill Kruse, 69, has been a part of the Ala Wai community (save for a four-year stint on land and a year at Ke'ehi) since 1967. A native Minnesotan, Kruse took up sailing in San Francisco, making his first sailing trip to Tahiti in 1964.

"I liked the solitude and the feeling of being out on the ocean," he said. "Out there, it's peace on earth."

Like most of his neighbors, Kruse lives modestly, needing only "a dry bunk, a refrigerator and a microwave" to be content. Some at the harbor rent storage space elsewhere for their excess; Kruse keeps his in his pickup truck.

Kruse said he's seen something of a cultural shift at the harbor, with younger, savings-minded boaters replacing seafarers.

"There used to be more real sailors — people who did crossings," Kruse said. "Now there are a lot of people who are just here because it's cheap living.

"There's a guy over there," Kruse said, pointing to a sailboat on the next dock. "I've never seen him take his boat out. It hasn't moved in three or four years."

Linda Bargo, who has lived at the harbor with her husband, Frank, for eight years, said there have been some troubling arrivals recently: Police raided a boat where people were allegedly dealing drugs.

"There is a new group of people coming in, and you never know who belongs where," she said. "Some people quietly buy boats (that are already assigned a slip). You don't always know who your neighbors are."

Bargo said one of her neighbors, a policeman, has done a good job patrolling the area and keeping things safe. Still, break-ins are frequent and residents have complained about drug activity in the parking lot.

The Bargos have spent 22 years living on a boat. It took them more than 11 years on a waiting list just to get into Ala Wai.

At Ala Wai, residents pay $9.35 per foot, with live-aboard permits issued on a year-to-year basis.

Slips for live-aboards have always been in high demand, and the recent closing of the harbor's F Dock and other areas because of unsafe conditions has exacerbated the situation. Because of the shortage of slips, visiting boats have been left without a public facility at which to tie up.

Bargo, Kruse and others say the present problems stem from years of deliberate neglect.

"Under the Cayetano administration, (Gov. Ben Cayetano) basically let it run down," Bargo said. "He didn't want to keep up the harbors."

Harbor residents have long-standing concerns about how their fees have been used — or not used.

"Money has never been spent wisely," she said. "At Ala Wai, half of our fees go to the other harbors. But if we're paying, why can't we have proper maintenance?"

Funding for O'ahu's 21 small-boat harbors comes from the Boating Special Fund. Stephen Thompson, O'ahu district manager of the Department of Land and Natural Resources' Boating Division, said the operating budget for Ala Wai, Ke'ehi and the 19 other boat harbors on O'ahu was $10.5 million last year.

"Ala Wai did pay in more last year," Thompson acknowledged.

Thompson said that the bidding process for the F Dock reconstruction would begin in April.

In the meantime, Bargo said, the boating fund is losing needed revenue from live-aboard and transient rentals.

Yet while Bargo, Kruse and others are willing to play squeaky wheel to get their concerns addressed, all are unanimous that the joys of living aboard are worth the occasional headaches.

"It's a different way of life, but you get used to it," Bargo said. "We've always been outdoors people, and we really enjoy the water."

The Tiernays say life doesn't get much better than sitting out on the deck on a clear night watching the Friday-night fireworks over Waikiki and listening to the music wafting in from the clubs and bars. Or taking the dinghy out for a little cheese, a little fruit and a close-up view of the weekend canoe races. Or simply getting the rigging in order for an adventure yet to come.

"There is definitely a sense of adventure because when you're out of a boat, you're dealing with Mother Nature," Ron Tiernay said. "Every day is different."