Living on The Boat

[jtmedli]

Boat food was $10.50 a day if I remember correctly. The price actually went up before we left for deployment.

But yeah, to echo everyone else here, do NOT live on the boat. BOQ or something? MAYBE.

If I were you, I'd just geo-bach it up and get a place out in town with someone else.

No-fuck can be a major shit-hole in places so do NOT go sight unseen (or neighbors unseen for that matter) on an apartment.

 

[Spekkio]

O's get charged per meal inport and automatically pay for all meals U/W. IIRC, on a small boy, if you ate three square a day inport, plus dues, it would probably run you ~$250/month.

I think this is just standard Navy practice. However, the amount you would pay if you ate every meal on the boat for a month is the enlisted BAS rate. Officers get a reduced rate under the assumption that they won't eat every meal at military mess facilities. The purpose of BAS is to pay for the servicemember's meals provided by military mess facilities, so theoretically the amount you save while not eating on the ship/base galley in-port should closely balance out with the amount extra that you have to pay underway. But at least you aren't a married enlisted servicemember who automatically has it deducted from his paycheck regardless of whether or not he eats on the ship or base galley.

Pickle, if your concern is school districts and a place big enough for horses, I think that you should consider a longer commute over geo-baching. If things get hectic where your choice is to drive 90 minutes, sleep 3 hours, then drive 90 min back to work or sleep on the ship, your stateroom will be there.

 

[MIDNJAC]

eat a couple meals on said boat before you make the decision. Mine was absolutely awful.....like 7 months of eating spaghetti for every meal because everything else was that bad. Breakfast of course was good because it is a SWO's meal, but any aviator schedule meal is just a reheat of the previous. Don't even get me started on mess dues, what you get for them, or the utter incompetence of any service function on the boat (laundry, CIS, housekeeping, toilet maintenance, washer/dryers). That and I can't handle that much military in my life. I need a place where I don't need to be in uniform, or covered, or worry about blackshoe-specific navy customs and courtesies. If that is your jam, then have at it, but I would lose my mind, at least if it were all the time.

 

[armada1651]

Also consider the pain and expense of the inevitable obesity, diabetes, and heart disease that will come of eating nothing but boat food indefinitely, and treating the syphilis that I'm sure anyone who spends more than the absolute minimum required time using a CVN shower and head must contract.

I shit you not - if someone told me right now I could either live on the boat or be homeless, I would AT THE MINIMUM try a few nights on the street and then check out the local shelters. There's the Union Mission and a Salvation Army - I'll find you the numbers if you're truly that desperate.

 

[BackOrdered]

Also consider the pain and expense of the inevitable obesity, diabetes, and heart disease that will come of eating nothing but boat food indefinitely, and treating the syphilis that I'm sure anyone who spends more than the absolute minimum required time using a CVN shower and head must contract.

I shit you not - if someone told me right now I could either live on the boat or be homeless, I would AT THE MINIMUM try a few nights on the street and then check out the local shelters. There's the Union Mission and a Salvation Army - I'll find you the numbers if you're truly that desperate.

Welp I was just getting ready to bite the bullet and geo bach on the ship for 4 months. I made it all the way through this thread committed to my plan, then I read this post. Not only have I not stopped laughing, but I'm now actively seeking a roommate.

Your NAM is in route to your command.

 

[picklesuit]

Alrighty, scratch option 1.

Probably going with option 3, roomie hunting....

Or else find a river and buy a van...

Thanks for the help!
Pickle

 

[ea6bflyr]

Or a puma....

 

[A7Dave]

Being a shooter at sea and eating in the dirty shirt wardroom is great. In port, having to eat in the shoe wardroom = misery. Get a room out in town or at least a BOQ room. Been there, done that.

 

[CAMike]

I was a SWO and observed a DH spiral into the emotional cess pool after attempting to execute Option #1 for 6 months. Option #2 IMO is also self defeating.

If 95% of SWO's can do it, you can as well. As long as your clean freak geek roommate doesn't spread it around town that you're a "shooter", you should be OK.

 

[wlawr005]

If you really wanna live on a boat, buy one and live at the Marina.

I second the camper, you can park that on base too...and it's probably cheaper than rent.

I'm assuming you've never been on a ship...it's not the small inconvenience you may think. It's a 24 hour balance of suck and misery with zero privacy and 2500 other people just as miserable as you.

 

[Gatordev]

I think this is just standard Navy practice. However, the amount you would pay if you ate every meal on the boat for a month is the enlisted BAS rate. Officers get a reduced rate under the assumption that they won't eat every meal at military mess facilities. The purpose of BAS is to pay for the servicemember's meals provided by military mess facilities, so theoretically the amount you save while not eating on the ship/base galley in-port should closely balance out with the amount extra that you have to pay underway. But at least you aren't a married enlisted servicemember who automatically has it deducted from his paycheck regardless of whether or not he eats on the ship or base galley.

That assumes the Supply department is on the up-and-up. For the 4 long deployments I've done, the Os were definitely NOT getting a reduced rate, and for the first two, our mess bills exceeded our BAS. When BAS went up a few years ago, that helped, but a single enlisted was still losing less money every month than an O was when on the ship underway.

 

[Swanee]

If you really wanna live on a boat, buy one and live at the Marina.

I second the camper, you can park that on base too...and it's probably cheaper than rent.

I'm assuming you've never been on a ship...it's not the small inconvenience you may think. It's a 24 hour balance of suck and misery with zero privacy and 2500 other people just as miserable as you.

Unless something has recently changed in Norfolk, the on base Marina doesn't allow liveaboards. However- long term transients always seemed to get a pass. You might be able to get away with that if you're going to be out to sea a significant portion of the year

 

[jtmedli]

Or a puma....

This may be funny, but I have heard of people doing this and living on the campgrounds at Little Creek.

 

[SynixMan]

While it might not be " Newport cold", it does get pretty cold here in the winters (lows in the 20s-30s consistently). I'd hate to be on a boat/camper during those months using a portable electric heater and 4 blankets.

 

[e6bflyer]

We always lost money at sea. Generally to the tune of $50 a month. Supposedly we were paying an extra $10 a month for Starbucks coffee and tazo tea. I did the math and I am pretty sure we could have put a Starbucks in a conex box and put it in the hangar bay for what we were paying. The coffee was fucking horrible. The bags did say Starbucks, but I don't know where they got them from or how old they were. Tasted like really really old coffee with a hint of old cigar and ass.
I once asked supply for an itemized list of what we were buying with our money every month. Still haven't gotten that.
As mentioned above, I found the supply department on the carrier to be the laziest and most inept organizations I have ever seen. The only way to get anything from them (basically to get them to do their job) is to hold their feet to the fire. It gets exhausting after a while.