Rainy day dreaming

(I am using this photo without permission it was taken from the internet)
Great looking houseboat!

The rainy weather has me inside and day dreaming about, you guessed it, boats.  As I have come to realize that weather is is my little house, my Vanagon, or my boats I love making little homes in them.  I do fantasize about building a small shanty boat or house boat that could tuck into shallow waters like the local marsh and just hide back there amongst the birds and fish and deer and such.  A shanty boat seems to meet that delicate balance between being out and exposed to the world but having some shelter too.  My sail boat does this well but it really wants to cover sea miles, that is what it is made for.  Sometimes I would just be happy to stay in a place for a while and watch the tide turn, the eagles nest and raise this years young, and the wind push the phragmites around.
Harry Bryan designed a SHANTYBOAT that is just about the thing I'd like to build.  The size is just about right and the character of the design lovely.  It defies the stereo type of a trailer on the water and is keeps it's boat nature in the shape of the hull.
Though this boat in the picture above is lovely it does not give the impression that it would move willingly or in anything but very calm conditions.  The SHANTYBOAT that Bryan drew and built looks as though it wants to move, a little bit, and I find that very appealing.
As I make the cabin of my fiberglass cruiser into a warm and inviting home I still can afford to dream about other boats and projects.  Dreams are free, mostly.

(taken from the internet without permission)
Harry Bryan's boat on the cover of WoodenBoat Magazine