Liveaboarders
Nova Scotia couple cast off for a life at sea
While their numbers are small, there are several Atlantic Canadians opting to sell their land-locked properties and live full-time aboard their boat
Waves lap gently against the hull of the Xcelsior II, a 44-foot sailboat sheltered in Wright’s Cove, Nova Scotia, on the eastern shore of the Bedford Basin at the Dartmouth Yacht Club.
Built in Africa, the Xcelsior II has two bedrooms, one in the front of the ship and the other in the back, a kitchen, living area complete with a flat screen TV, two bathrooms and a shower.
When it was first brought to Canada, the Xcelsior II was worth an estimated $440,000.
Ted and Pat Haight snagged a deal, buying her for only $60,000 six years ago.
And now, they call that sailboat their home.
The Haights are members of a seldom-discussed “liveaboard” community in Atlantic Canada: people who choose to live most or all of the year on their boats.
Their numbers are few. “There are about 300 boats in the yacht club (in Dartmouth) and only about a dozen of us live aboard our boats,” estimates Ted.
Perhaps because of the small size of the liveaboard community, depictions of these people run the gamut from Hollywood’s portrayals of yacht owners as being filthy rich to descriptions of them as eccentric.
The Haights, though, are neither. Just regular working folks.
“I’m a school bus driver and my wife is a monitor,” says Ted. “We pick up and deliver precious cargo during the school year and then we bugger off during the summer.”
It wasn’t always like this for the couple. There was a time when they lived much like every other typical, suburban Canadian family.
“We had a five-bedroom, twobathroom house in Woodlawn in Dartmouth, a middle-class area,” says Pat. “We had great neighbours, a full garage and a backyard.”
Maintaining that house on its almost half-acre lot, though, was a lot of work.
Ted was in the navy, leaving his wife at home alone, taking care of all of the usual maintenance, for long stretches while he was out to sea. She tired of mowing the lawn and shoveling their long driveway.
Fifteen years ago, the Haights did something about it.
“We sold the house in 2003 and bought a 27-foot sailboat. That was our summer cottage. We would stay there even when our granddaughters came along.”
At first, the couple stayed in apartments during the winter months or house-sat. But the lure of the open seas and warmer climes proved irresistible.
Three years later, in 2006, they set sail and lived aboard that first sailboat for 20 months.
Now, the two 64-year-olds are getting ready to live that adventure again. Once they retire and the summer months draw to a close in Atlantic Canada, the Haights will guide the Xcelsior II out to sea and leave winter behind.
“We will be headed south, leaving on the Labour Day weekend,” said Ted. “It’ll be a five-destination trip along the Eastern Seaboard before we head to the Bahamas … the Caribbean. Then, in mid-april (the following year), we’ll head up along the Gulf Stream and be back in Nova Scotia before the hurricane season.”
That’s roughly the beginning of June.