On the game being changed, the essential truth, and you should be watching WhiteSpot Pirates...
Yesterday I happened to realize that I've lived over 11,000 or so days/nights aboard which, if you do the math, comes out to a bit over three decades. Kind of a scary number when you think about it.
The fact of the matter is the whole boat thing was not so much a plan but simply something that happened... When I was in college rents were high in San Francisco, I was poor, and there was a guy advertising for someone to boatsit his schooner (free rent and $100 a month for doing light maintenance). I found being moderately handy where carpentry and fiberglass was concerned there was always a job available at one of the local boat yards or just down the dock whenever I needed more money... It was a comfortable existence.
Just the situation for an itinerant camera operator, occasional musician, and climbing/ski/surf bum who was mostly unemployed to thrive in. To paraphrase what a guy once said...
Listening to France Gall
So it goes...