All aboard with live aboards!
Photo Essay by Ross Osborne
As sets of gentle waves roll off of passing fishing boats steering into Squalicum Harbor on Bellingham Bay, Dave Butler’s home rocks ever so slightly from side to side, port to starboard, dockside to dockside. Butler's home is a white 48-foot Grand Banks 46 Alaskan, one of 40 in the world, made entirely from teak that sits in its new slip at Squalicum Harbor.
Butler, along with his wife and dog, just made the move from the outer side of the harbor at their previous slip, a nearly one-half mile walk from where he parks his car, to the slips closest to the marina's bathroom, shower and laundry room.
They reside in one of the 100 allotted liveaboard slips in Squalicum harbor found just north of downtown Bellingham. Having grown up around boats almost his whole life, choosing to live full time on the water was an easy decision.
“I love this: it’s my happy place being on the water,” Butler described as he stood smiling on his back deck. “It's like a little floating condo.”
Butler, who works as a field engineer for a fiber optic company, purchased his Alaskan from a 95-year-old man from Port Orchard who had decided it was time to part with the boat he had owned from birth. His family made the boat their home.
The harbor provides just over 1,400 moorage slips for commercial, fishing and pleasure boats. Of the 1,400-plus slips, roughly 100 house those who have made their boat their permanent home.
Rick Laursen, a good friend of Butler’s, says he will never own a storage unit. Everything he needs is in his sailboat. Laursen will have been a liveaboard for 14 years at the end of May, 2025.
“I think it takes a really interesting person to want to live on a boat,” said Thomas Smith, Squalicum Harbor operations specialist. “A lot of times it's not the big yacht that's bigger than your house, it's people living in tight quarters and they’re here rain or shine.”
Smith, who has been with the Port of Bellingham for almost four years, explained how much of his role involves working alongside liveaboards. He hears their stories and creates connections with the community as he and the others at the harbor work to maintain a safe, healthy and thriving community.
Owning a slip at the marina requires a great deal of respect for its workers and the environment. Smith described how leaks and spills are inevitable, but prevention and working together to clean up afterwards is a whole marina effort.
“We have our own in-house environmental team who's pretty strict on us.” Smith remarked.
Due to its cleanliness, the harbor has earned the Certified Clean Marina Certificate. The marina also has a program called the Environmental Compliance Assessment Program that was created by the Port of Bellingham in 1992 to protect the environment of the port and assist tenants with the best environmental compliance practices.
Being a liveaboard requires a different type of relationship with yourself, your boat and your marina. Having a home that can go anywhere on the seas creates a new level of freedom, but comes with the sacrifice of giving up the unnecessary items in your life that physically won't fit on the boat. Giving up a home on land and taking on one on the water gives liveaboards a community unlike any other.
Many of the liveaboards are members of the Bellingham Yacht Club and can often be found at the many musical jam nights laughing and playing songs together. A group of sailors from all parts of the world that somehow found their way to Bellingham, Washington to have a home on the water and alongside the many others of Squalicum Harbor.