My brother came to visit us in Provincetown on our mooring for a few days. He’s only ever come to visit when we were tied to a dock. Talk about a bit of anxiety. Weather anxiety.

Smack in the middle of his visit was a Gale Warning, winds gusting to 30 knots. The forecast kept changing, so I was never quite sure when the gale was going to happen, or if it would happen when he was arriving. When did he need to leave? Or smack in the middle?

But that’s the thing about having guests when you live on a boat. A different sort of weather anxiety. The usual is the coordination of where and when. Where in Florida will you be on March 2nd? This one we handle easily by getting somewhere two to four weeks early and waiting for our friends/family. And in these situations, we try to spring for a marina to make getting on and off the boat simpler.

But Provincetown has evolved into our summer home, and having a private mooring ball of our very own means that we are on the ball and not in a slip.

This brings the weather anxiety of whether it will be safe to go to shore.

In the end, it worked out. He arrived on Wednesday, and it was calm enough for us to drop his bag in the dinghy and go out for lunch before returning to the boat. Thursday was our gale, where we only topped out at 30 knots, so we stayed on the boat and mostly lounged about. Then Friday was calm again, as was his departure day on Saturday.

So he got the whole liveaboard experience. Walking to the grocery store, dinghy to and from that boat. swimming and lounging. And of course, a visit from the pumpout boat.