A Naked Scene From a Liveaboard Life

This story by Tim Litfin appears in our September issue. It’s so much fun, we decided to share it again…

When I woke this morning, I never imagined that the day ahead could include my running home barefoot through the cold night air, wearing nothing but a used garbage bag.

I blame computers.

You see, I live aboard a lovely classic yawl. It started when my main computer’s motherboard failed and needed replacing. It was built into the boat, with the motherboard literally screwed down onto an integrated piece of furniture. Everything on a boat has to be secure, the computer especially so. The replacement project had been looming for a long time. It took most of a week, but the result was a huge improvement in hardware serviceability.

Windows didn’t like being moved to new hardware, and I was fighting it for days before resigning myself to reinstalling all of my software on a new OS.

Exhausted, waiting for new software to download, at last I had time to get a shower. We have a shower on the boat, but I generally use the harbor’s shore facilities so I can linger under hot water for a good five minutes without worrying about having to refill the boat’s freshwater supply.

A chilly walk to the shore facilities delivered a reliably delicious shower, after which I finally felt human again. That moment took a sharp turn into exasperation when I looked out into the drying area of the shower room and discovered I had forgotten to bring my towel from the boat.

Let me remind you it’s cold, say, 45-ish. Migration-spurring, hypothermia-inducing cold. It’s frickin’ December, and I’m in a drafty, cinder block building, naked and wet. My only option, besides putting on my clothes while dripping wet and walking back to the boat that way on a cold, windy night, was to get a bunch of paper towels from the outer boater’s restroom area.

I opened the door from the shower room, and, being a smart monkey, I carefully slid the deadbolt over to ensure the door wouldn’t spring shut, a time-tested technique. As I stepped dripping into the boater’s restroom area, just like an unbelievable slapstick comedy skit, the door to the shower room slammed shut behind me anyway (apparently the deadbolt had been damaged). So now I’m standing naked and wet in the boater’s restroom, already cold, and a little stunned, with all of my clothes and keys locked in the shower room. I start drying off with a quickly diminishing inventory of paper towels. There wouldn’t be enough even for that. My only option at this point was to make a run for my boat, with only one locked 10-ft-tall gate between that plan and certain success. Naked. Wet.

Find out what happened next in September’s Latitude 38.