Melbourne families retreat to their holiday home on water

It’s “ridiculously expensive”, but life afloat makes it worthwhile. 

Grant Storey, 62, and wife Sue, 61, live on their boat berthed at Marina Yarra’s Edge four days a week.  

They make the hour-long drive to Docklands every Wednesday night before returning to their home at the Heritage Golf and Country Club in Chirnside Park. 

The semi-retired couple run their agricultural machinery business in Lilydale during their three-day work week, and spend the other days on their vessel Early Out, meaning early retirement. 

Like a city apartment,  the boat has two bedrooms with en suites, a lounge room, kitchen with a dishwasher, surround sound system and TV units.

It is their home on the water, he says, which their children and grandchildren sometimes visit on weekends.

​”We’ve always had a love for the water and the beach, so we feel that living on the water is extremely relaxing,” Mr Storey says.

“The boat is like a little sanctuary for us, where we can get away from everything, forget about all the worries of the working world and sit back, relax and enjoy ourselves.”

The boat offered all the conveniences of a low-maintenance home, he said, and needed only an occasional wash down and a polish once a year.  

Living on the edge of the CBD means the couple often walk to the South Melbourne market and the city. 

“You get other boat owners who you get acquainted with over the years, and it’s quite a social scene,” he adds. 

Marina Yarra’s Edge manager Alan Cayzer​ says the marina draws local visitors from Geelong, Williamstown and Queenscliff and interstate boats from Tasmania and Queensland. 

Last year, a boat cruising the world from Seattle stayed for more than a month. 

Mr Cayzer says no one is allowed to use their boat as a permanent residence, but some owners keep their vessel in the marina for the full length of the 25-year lease. 

“We have lots of people who consider their boat as their holiday house, and they’ll come down for a weekend or a week or Christmas and New Year and the school holidays,” Mr Cayzer said.

“It gives them the opportunity to take their boats out … [so they] aren’t just tied up here like a holiday house is on a concrete slab or the stumps.”

It costs $50 for an overnight stay or $300 a week and the annual fee depends on the size of the berth. A mid-size berth could set an owner back $11,450 a year.

Boats sail to different marinas around Port Phillip Bay, Mr Cayzer says, but most never leave the bay.

Mornington resident Anthony Hansen, 44, and his brother, Marcus, have kept their boat “Coco” at the Melbourne City Marina berth since January. 

The brothers often use the boat as a way of catching up, to entertain and as a family holiday home. 

Mr Hansen said the boat was “ridiculously expensive” to keep, and likened it to a wedding. Costs include fuel, servicing motors, applying antifouling paint to the bottom, yacht management and berthing fees. 

“It tends to get a lot more expensive the bigger the boat gets,” the diamond merchant says. 

“So it’s a real luxury to have one, but we can justify the price because we get so much enjoyment out of it with family and friends on board.

“It is awesome to wake up in Docklands, making a meal and having a shower on board a boat.”

Waterways manager at the City of Melbourne Doug Jarvis says more people are exploring and voyaging on their boats, and find it an attractive alternative to travelling on land. 

At sea, he says, technology, advertisements, restrictions and rules don’t intrude as much. 

“All of us are more focused on the environment, we’re more in tune with nature and we want to have an experience that’s not a bitumen road,” he says.