The New York Times recently reported on London’s growing houseboat community. Some of the challenges these houseboaters face will sound quite familiar. “In London, a Houseboat Used to Be the Affordable Option. Not Anymore,” reads the headline. It’s the old story of supply and demand, according to the Times: “With land-based...
We recently posted a firsthand dispatch from West Maui by former Gate 6 ½ resident Robb Petty. Robb, a retired emergency room doctor, and his wife Jane returned there just days after the devastating fire, when they learned their home near Lahaina had been spared. Since then, they’ve had limited...
The website iHeart states: “There is one town in California situated within the hills along the coast, framing the lines where the sun meets the earth and the earth meets the sea. A breathtaking change of pace that is simply impossible to forget if you’ve ever visited, leaving you with...
The BBC has reviewed a new book which features eight examples of remarkable houseboats from Scandinavia to the US. Surprisingly, none of the eight are located in Sausalito. The cover of a new book, Making Waves: Floating Homes and Life on the Water by Portland Mitchell, captures the freedom associated...
When I first moved to Gate 6 ½, I thought I had one of the most unique addresses on the planet. Indeed, it caused confusion at the Sausalito Post Office and in computer programs all over the world. But just recently my stepdaughter Jennifer sent me a photo of 6½...
Jarl Forsman of Issaquah Dock found a website that tells of a French village of upside-down boat houses. Equihen Plage is a fishing port and farming village on the English Channel coast. Back at the beginning of the 1900s, as many boats were abandoned on the shore, local fishermen used...
After visiting Amsterdam last month, Jane and I joined ex-Issaquah neighbor Emily Riddell for a Viking River cruise down the Rhine and Danube rivers to Budapest. (Emily’s husband Stuart was a late scratch for this trip for health reasons, but he has recovered, and the couple will be visiting Issaquah...
On a late April visit to Amsterdam, Jane and I discovered the Houseboat Museum, and were struck by the parallels between the Dutch waterfront community and our own. The museum is housed in the Hendrika Maria, a former freighter, built in 1914. Until the 1960s the boat primarily transported sand...