Florida Today from Cocoa, Florida • Page 5

-II FLORIDA TODAY SUNDAY, APRIL 4, 2004 5A VANISHING LIFESTYLE Marinas abandon liveaboard leases Living on the water Many Brevard County marinas still allow liveaboards long-term, even permanent boat residents. The following is a list of marinas and their per month rate for liveaboards. LTVEABOARDS, from 1A "exponential proliferation of liveaboards," said Mike Zavosky, a spokesman for the state Department of Environmental BREVARD AfV frlMl if Yak a I Cc A Wver 4 Port A Canaveral -C; WZ'L iLLLV-Wr ft VT ZL, 5 MILES co. w. Photos by Rik Jesse.

FLORIDA TODAY Below deck. Laurie Phillips with her daughter, Becca Rose, 8, offer each other a "toast" of juice below deck. The Phillips family has lived on a 39-foot sailboat for the past four years. All walks of life live afloat 0 Orange Cove 400 W. Cocoa Beach Causeway (SR 520), Cocoa Beach 31 slips, 5 liveaboards.

$115 liveaboard, $7 a foot. Harbortown 2700 Harbortown Drive, Merritt Island 300 slips, about 6 liveaboards $10.50 foot per month for transients, two-month limit, anything longer, must get approval. Pay deposit based on boat size, 35-foot minimum. Whitley Marina 93 Delannoy, Cocoa 117 slips, about 3-4 transients. $9 foot, $100 month transient fee, first month free.

Maximum stay, six months. Tttuwflta Municipal Marina 451 Marina Road, Titusville 200 slips, about 20-25 percent liveaboards. $12 per foot. $75 liveaboard fee. Kennedy Point Marina 4749 S.

Washington Titusville 100 slips, about 17 liveaboards. $7.50 a foot. $110 liveaboard fee Cape Marina 800 Scallop Drive, Port Canaveral 109 slips, $240 month for 30 foot, $256 for 32 foot, $320 for a 40, $360 for a 45 foot slip, $425 for a 50 foot slip, $467.50 for a 55 foot slip. Liveaboard is $55 per person. Inquiries: 783-8410 New Port Marina 960 Mullet Drive, Port Canaveral 39 slips, 5 liveaboards $7.50 a foot.

Minimum of 40 feet. $50 extra per person liveaboard. itff ml hM Mitt us 1 Sr Map l. Washington Rd. l.

i Harbor home. Jay Walter has lived at Indian Cove Marina in Merritt Island for the past 20 years on a converted Norwegian coastal lifeboat. John Farley back, there's no telling what it will be like" for liveaboards, Ed Byers said. "This is the ideal place!" Cheryl said. BY JEFF SCHWEERS FLORIDA TODAY Drawn by a love of the sea and the freedom to float where they please, liveaboards make up a special breed.

Pat and Laurie Phillips have lived aboard a sailboat with their two daughters, ages 8 and 13, for the past four years. Their cabin is decorated with ladybugs, butterflies and frog decals. Their cramped quarters are crowded with books everywhere, along with a TV, a laptop, a VCR, CDs and a dolphin wind chime that tinkles gently in the breeze. "It's not much difference between that and traveling around in an RV," Pat Phillips said. They say they do it for their children.

Both were working to provide a house, clothing, education and not spending enough time doing things with them. So they sold their house in Denver, bought a boat in North Carolina and have been sailing the Southeast and Bahamas. Until recently, they home-schooled their kids. Now the children attend public school. Phillips is a theater producer.

His wife is a physical therapist. He also has real estate investments, a total of 15 properties including a four-unit apartment building on Young Street in the old Eau Gallie neighborhood. "We're not gypsies," he said. He realizes, though, that not everyone agrees. Life on the water is changing.

"You can't just pull into an anchorage and drop your hook anymore," Phillips said. "It's rich old people whose property values have gone up and don't want to see boaters in their Jay Walter (D Intracoastal Marina 705 U.S. 1, Melbourne 118 slips, 11 liveaboards. $8.50 a foot. $150 for liveaboard.

$50 for power. Eau Gallie Yacht Harbor 587 Young Melbourne 60 slips 4-5 liveaboards. $9 a foot, $100-150 liveaboard depending on size of boat. () Wateriine Marina 911 N. Harbor City Melbourne 100 slips 15 liveaboards.

$8.50 a foot, $100 liveaboard fee. Limited to six consecutive months in a calendar year. Diamond 99 4399 N. Harbor City Blvd. 80 slips, 10 liveaboard limit.

Monthly: $8.95 a foot transient. $7.95 a foot six months or longer, plus $130 additional monthly fee for liveaboards. Includes electric. 0 Telemar Bay Marina 1399 Banana River Drive, Indian Harbour Beach 205 slips, 7-8 liveaboards currently. $9 per foot per month, $150 month to live aboard.

City of Indian Harbour Beach lets have up to 20 percent liveaboards with a one-year occupational license. () Anchorage Yacht Basin 96 E. Eau Gallie Causeway, Melbourne 70-75 slips, one liveaboard currently. $7.95 per foot, $150 for liveaboards, if available. Protection.

"We're not the people they should worry about," said Mike Tanner, an artist and sculptor who lives on a boat in Eau Gallie Yacht Basin. "We love the water and nature, nourish the water. We're not the people destroying wetlands and beaches." State interest The state has a two-pronged interest in regulating liveaboards, Zavosky said: Protecting the quality of the water and making sure it's available to all. An anchored liveaboard blocks out fishermen, boaters and others who might want to share the same water. Also, liveaboards create more wastewater, and that wastewater needs to be disposed of, Zavosky said.

Most marinas have pumpout stations and restrooms for liveaboards, but boats that are anchored out can be a problem, he said. Florida Marine Patrol Capt. Mickey Otwell said that while there is some concern about boaters dumping wastewater into the waterways, it isn't a big problem in Brevard. "There's more manatee feces in the water than human feces," Otwell said. The state owns most of the land under the waterways.

The Board of Trustees of the Internal Improvement Trust Fund authorizes the leasing of the state-owned bottom land, also called sovereign submerged lands, to cities, marinas, yacht clubs and boat yards. The state gets about $11 million a year from those leases. Several years ago, the state inserted a liveaboard clause in its leases. Most restrict liveaboards to no more than six months at any marina in a calendar year, said Bud Vielhauer, deputy general counsel for Public Lands. "The board felt that use of sovereign land as a residence is not an appropriate use," Vielhauer said.

"These are public lands." There are exceptions. After the state began inserting the liveaboard provision into its leases in the late 1980s, regulators found a number of marinas that had pre-existing liveaboards with long-term leases and the board grandfathered them. 'On the hook' John Saunders, a 90-year-old widower and retired office furniture company president, keeps a set of binoculars on a coffee table in the living room of his old boat-house, which looks out over Mile Marker 13 in the Eau Gallie River. It's a popular anchorage. "I have no problem with the liveaboards in the (Eau Gallie) yacht basin," Saunders said.

"It's the ones who anchored out. That's one thing I've been fighting against. They come and stay for days." In Melbourne, people who anchor out are allowed three days "on the hook." Then, they have to move on orface being cited by the policewaterpatrol. "Without the restriction, folks couldn't move in the water because so many people would take advantage of the free anchorage," Melbourne Police Deputy Chief John Short said. "It's more of a problem during boating season, which wearejustbeginningtoget into." The two most popular spots are south of the Eau Gallie and Melbourne causeways, Short said.

Other cities have their own rules and restrictions about anchoring out, but there are anchorages not regulated by municipal governments. "As long as they're out of the channel, they're free to anchor up," Otwell said. "In most places around the state if a vessel is in state waters outside of navigable channels, they're free to anchor. There's no time restriction on how long. An hour, days or weeks." Marinas disappearing There still are safe harbors for liveaboards: Eau Gallie Yacht Basin in Melbourne, Telemar Bay and the Anchorage Yacht Basin in Indian Harbour Beach, the Cove at Port Canaveral, Titusville Municipal Marina and Kennedy Point in Titusville are some exam- Cles.

Liveaboards can stay there ecause the marinas don't have state leases and own their own bottomland. Greg Burgey, general manager at Kennedy Point, said the liveaboard group is the come-and-go type; they move every couple of years. "A lot of people you talk to have a Jot of problems with them," Bur- John Farley, 61, has lived full-time on a boat for 15 years, the last two at Telemar Bay while making repairs to his boat engine before heading to the southern Caribbean. He's been a sailor his whole life. "Liveaboards just get a bad name," he said.

People abuse the privilege, cause problems for everyone else, he said. He, too, believes the liveaboard life may soon be a thing of the past. It's getting more restrictive, harder to find a place to stay. "I don't think my grandchildren will ever see the freedom I've seen," he said. Ed and Cheryl Byers Both retired public schoolteachers, Ed and Cheryl Byers have lived the past five years on a sailboat.

They're leaving for the Caribbean this month, coming back in November. "By the time we come Jay Walter said he was bom in Estonia, once part of the Soviet Union, in 1900. He said he's spent his life at sea from the time he was 14, and served in both the Estonian and British navies. For the past 20 years he has lived at Indian Cove Marina, aboard a converted Norwegian coastal lifeboat. In his book, the 31 -foot ketch-rigged Nimrod is unsuitable.

On a recent afternoon he was teaching Bill Harrison how to tie knots in a boat line. He likes helping other sailors when they're in a pinch, he said. "I'm just an old guy that has some knowledge of older things most young people don't know about." Contact Schweert at 409-1421 or Jschweera6flatoday.net TJ. Standish, FLORIDA TODAY they have to find me another place to go." Contact Schweert at 409-1421 or Jschwears6flatoday.net LOOK FEEL GET FIT! At Dillard's, it's our job to fit you correctly. Your comfort is our goal.

Our certified professional fitters will check to make sure: off Your straps don't slip Your bra does not ride up Your bra cups look your shoulders. your back. very smooth. gey said. "I've never had any problems." But more and more marinas are no longer catering to liveaboards, or are getting out of the marina business altogether.

Marinas and yacht harbors in Brevard like Banana River Marina and Tingley's on Merritt Island have stopped leasing to liveaboards onayear-round basis because it was too much of a hassle. "It's a controversial issue and one I'd rather not participate in," said Tom Nelson, the dockmaster at Melbourne Harbor. "It just doesn't pay from a business perspective." Also, places that were once big centers for liveaboards are disappearing as marina owners sell out to developers who knock them down and build condominiums in their place. "Boaters like myself are finding it more difficult to find a place to put their boat, especially here in Florida," said John Farley, who's lived aboard boats for 15 years and currently is tied up at Telemar. "Developers are taking advantage of the real estate market, rooting liveaboards out." For example, Island Point marina on Merritt Island, just north of the Cocoa Beach Causeway State Road 520, was bought by a development group that's building a condominium there.

The same group has exercised its option on the Indian Cove Marina next door, said Dave Johnson, the manager of Indian Cove. Jay Walter who says he's 104 may be the oldest liveaboard in Brevard. He's lived at Indian Cove for 20 years on a 31-foot Norwegian coastal lifeboat converted for sailing. He's already outlasted three marina owners and plans to stay as long as the marina is around. "I've got an unlimited contract as long as I pay my fees, which I intend to do until the bitter end," Walter said one afternoon, sitting in his cockpit.

He knows, however, that the new owner's plans for the marina I -A Meet the Experts: Meet Dillard's in-store fitters at Merritt Square: Tuesday, April 6 I p.m. 7 p.m. (321)452-6411 Visiting guest fitter from Wacoal will be available: 1 p.m. 7 p.m. Meet Dillard's in-store fitters at Melbourne Square: Becky Gillis, Iris Elliott and Effie O'Neill Friday, April 9 II a.m.

5 p.m. (321) 676-1300 JOIN US FOR BRA FIT WEEK! Dillard's in-store fitters are available daily to accommodate your busy schedule. Appointments are recommended, but not necessary. Walk-ins will be taken on apriority basis. Call your local Dillard's store for a convenient appointment time.

Dillard's may displace him from his slip. "If and when tjey want me to move, 'I!.