Home off the water
Home for Murray Sinclair is his vehicle and boat, parked up on the streets of Invercargill.
The 56-year-old said for the past five months he had generally spent several days parked in one Invercargill street before moving to another.
‘‘I sleep in the boat, but if it gets a bit damp I sleep in the truck,’’ he said. ‘‘I am filling in a gap between jobs at the moment . . . working out what to do next.’’
He spends his days in his boat thinking, sometimes doing poetry, checking out the internet on his phone and enjoying his surrounds, with a favourite spot being beside the river at Sandy Point, near Invercargill.
‘‘That’s the beauty of [this lifestyle] – I can just move positions,’’ he said. ‘‘I might be in one spot for three days and move somewhere else.’’
Sinclair said he was on the unemployment benefit and couldn’t afford to rent a flat, and if he parked up in a
camping ground he would have little money left over each week.
He didn’t want to live on the street but couldn’t afford the alternative options, he said.
Sinclair said his boat had been left at a marine business where he was working in 2007, so he bought it, rebuilt it and its
trailer, and had been living in it for more than a decade, mainly in Alexandra and Invercargill. He initially lived in the boat in camping grounds, as it allowed him to pay off his debts and child support. But campground costs had risen, as had living costs, hence his current lifestyle.
He cooked on a gas cooker in his boat, bought cheap brands of food, used public toilets and sponged himself down from a bucket of water with detergent to keep clean.
He said a ‘‘caravan would be better’’ and wondered about the long-term effects on his knees of climbing in and
out of his boat.
He didn’t give the impression that he was stressing about life, portraying a relaxed attitude and saying he had followed the Baha’i faith since 1997.
His minimalist and ‘‘gypsy’’ lifestyle forced him to look at things differently and appreciate the basics of life, including nature, he said.
‘‘You see different aspects of what nature does . . . [when] sitting back watching birds. They do some astonishing things. All the secrets of science are locked up in nature and when you are in this position you see more of it. [But] when you are in society . . . it’s like a forced distraction, like rushing to work and getting organised, it takes you away from the basics.’’
He said he was an outboard motor mechanic by trade, but
walked away from the industry a few years ago.
‘‘That’s the beauty of [this lifestyle] – I can just move positions.’’ Murray Sinclair