Reflections on Bailing, Slugs, and Slips Amid a Housing Crisis
Weighing the cost of staying anchored to the Bay Area.
When I turned thirty, I moved to a boat in the Berkeley Marina. This was not the accommodation I'd imagined for myself at this age, but owning or even renting in the Bay Area felt out of reach. At a couple of hundred dollars a month and boasting views of the bay, the slip in the marina was a steal.
The downside about life in the marina was my boat leaked. If I did not bail out the boat within forty-eight hours, the water would creep up from the unseen hollows and spill over the boat's carpeted floor. If I went away for more than a day, I would hold my breath at the marina gates, relief flooding me when I saw the blue sail covers, the boat gently rocking in the tide. Although the boat was old and only worth a few thousand dollars, i...