Jody Pountain

Jody joins the Tiny House team after recognizing her apparent draw to tiny spaces. She transitioned from a 4000 sf home in cold weather to an ocean-going vessel in the tropics. Living on the ocean and relying solely on the systems within her floating tiny house has given her a whole new appreciation for simple living. She resides compactly aboard a 42? sailboat with her boyfriend Peter and their two furry four-legged children, Gunner and Betsy. Jody traded in the corporate conundrum for a life less ordinary and is now island-hopping around the Caribbean. Between a quirky obsession with organizing, capturing pretty pictures, diving with turtles and burying her toes in the sand, she feeds a passion for writing by blogging about their adventures in search of surf, sun, sand and serenity Where The Coconuts Grow.

It’s Not The Size Of Your House

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 It’s not the size of your house, it’s how you live your life.

All of us in the Tiny House Community are familiar with and in some way intrigued by the idea that we don’t need a big house or a fancy car to be happy. It’s not about the house. It’s not about all the things, or lack thereof, that we put in them. To me, it’s about a state of mind. It’s about a practical way of living life that focuses on experiences, not things.

I live in a tiny floating home that is just big enough to carry my family and the belongings that make me happy. What’s nearest and dearest to my heart fits inside this 300-sf boat and I can take it all with me wherever I go.

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Tuning In

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On land, I used to come home from work, walk inside my cozy house, and close the door behind me shutting out the entire outside world. It didn’t matter if it was raining cats and dogs or sizzling the pavement with that hot Californian sun. My climate-controlled cozy house was … Read more

Airing Our Dirty Laundry

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Literally, of course! Well, after it’s been washed. You won’t find any juicy details here. Living in a tiny floating home has certain challenges, such as doing laundry. Once upon a time I lived in a 4,000 square foot house with a brand new front-load high efficiency washing machine and … Read more

Tiny Floating Homes: ASANTE

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Back when Peter and I first started talking about buying a boat I would come home from work every evening and spend countless hours scouring the internet for all the advice I could get. I would look at boats for sale and I would indulge in the dreamy sailing photos on Pinterest. It … Read more

Dream Tiny

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“Live Simple, Dream Big,” “If your dreams don’t scare you, they aren’t big enough.” It’s sayings like these that are engrained into our minds from a very young age and suffocatingly follow us through the rest of our lives. Our parents love us so much that they want us to … Read more

High and Dry

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Everyone knows that BOAT stands for bust out another thousand. While this is true to some degree, not everything on a boat costs that much. There are, however, some critical maintenance items that must be done on a regular basis to keep vessels in top working condition. Owning a boat … Read more

A Life Less Ordinary

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Our friends Wes and Elizabeth have been talking about coming to visit for quite some time. Finally our free time aligned and flights were booked. They were a bit hesitant at first to stay in our tiny floating home but once they arrived it didn’t take long for them to … Read more

Tiny Floating Homes: RAG DOLL

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Sometime last February Peter and I sailed into a popular destination in the Bahamas called Staniel Cay. We anchored next to a tiny little sailboat in the far corner of the bay and settled in for a strong blow that was forecasted to arrive later that afternoon. As the wind picked up and the waves grew large we kept an eye on the boats around us to ensure no one had begun to drag anchor. Only one or two other boats stuck it out and didn’t move to another anchorage when the winds clocked around from another direction. One of which was a 24′ sailboat named Rag Doll.

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Keeping Cool in the Caribbean

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Peter and I spend the majority of our days at anchor. We sail from one place to another and settle in after finding an anchorage that is relatively protected from the wind and waves. When the wind dies down, our tiny floating home heats up like an oven in the … Read more

Tiny Floating Homes – Salty

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Salty is a stout 1998 65′ steel expedition style cutter sailboat designed by Bruce Roberts and home to a family of five. A 65′ sailboat is not so tiny compared to most liveaboard boats out there (and actually quite massive compared to my 42′ sailboat) but this floating home has … Read more

Safety At Sea: Inside a Ditch Bag and Med Kit

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Now that the ocean is our home, it’s even more critical that Peter and I have the supplies we need in the event of an emergency. This is similar to carrying emergency supplies in your car and stocking up in your home if you live where “The Big One” could tremble the earth so much it knocks out all roads, power and water at any minute; or if you live where a snow storm could leave you trapped inside a car or home; or if you live where a hurricane or tornado could demolish your town.

There are increasing numbers of Doomsday Preppers around the world today that fear a disaster of epic proportions could render them completely on their own. TV shows have depicted some of the extremes these preppers have gone to ensuring their safety and survival.

For others, it’s a less of an obsession but rather a desire for a ‘Plan B’ type of scenario that inspires them to always be prepared for anything to happen.

Peter’s uncle Dan and his wife Terry own a compound in the desert primarily for off-roading and weekend fun. They also know in the back of their minds that they have somewhere safe to go that is fully stocked up with supplies and survival gear in the event that the economy crashes beyond repair and chaos breaks out in the masses.

Two of our favorite TV shows before leaving our little home in San Diego were SurvivorMan and Dual Survival. Both of these shows are of course based on survival and they really get us thinking about whether or not we would have the know-how to truly survive in the wilderness. These guys demonstrate that it’s not as easy as it looks to survive in less-than-ideal conditions when it comes to extreme cold, heat, wind, shelter, food, hydration, finding help, medical issues, and know-how. We believe it is just as important to actually get out and tests your skills before you need to use them. Could you really make a fire with wet kindling or no kindling? Do you know how to use a magnesium stick? Could you catch fish without a fishing pole? Would you actually know how to use a water purifier if you were dying of thirst? Do you know what to do if you’re bitten by a snake or poisonous insect? Would you know how to signal for help without a radio?

It seems so basic to know how to survive, but when you really think about it, could you?? Going from life on land to living on a boat brings a whole new meaning to SIMPLE LIVING. It’s about sustaining life and getting by with the skills and tools available to us.

One of the first projects Peter and I tackled after moving aboard was to build a thorough Ditch Bag and Medical Kit with everything we could think of and get our hands on. It was near the top of our priority list as we began outfitting the boat, knowing it MUST be done before we left the protection of Charlotte Harbor.

Wonder what kind of survival tools we have on board?

DITCH BAG:

We assembled our Ditch Bag with the idea that we need to be able to survive and find help if something ever happened to the boat, if we were swept out to sea in the dinghy or stranded on an island somewhere. Our Ditch Bag is essentially a dry-bag with all of the basic survival gear we might need in the event of an emergency. Although one time the Ditch Bag was accidentally left on the big boat instead of taken out in the dinghy during a diving expedition, we have made it a policy to always bring the Ditch Bag when we take the dinghy anywhere. Even if it’s just for a quick potty run to shore with the dogs, anything could happen. Two items we’d like to include but have not yet purchased are a handheld GPS and a handheld VHF radio.

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Tiny Floating Homes: Terrapin

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The Nance family is living aboard a 45′ sailboat. Their tiny floating home, Terrapin, is the perfect size for this family of four. Phil, Aimee and their two daughters, Jessica and Emma, have been out cruising for a total of 46 days after sailing south from their hometown of San … Read more