Cruising Costs

Not Quite Priceless

How Much Does It Cost

January 2010
Savannah Georgia

Start with 'a lot'; but there's more to it than that...

While putting a few numbers together on the cost of cruising ( don't scoff, all it takes is good note keeping and an HP 12C , learn reverse Polish notation, and start computing). It's sad to watch, but over time the aging process wreaks havoc on anything sitting in the salt water. Some maintence is routine, some is unscheduled. Regardless, it cannot be neglected for any length of time. I prefer to perform maintence where I have access to marine grade hardware, so returning to the US I had a lot of deferred maintence, some upgrades and repairs that needed to be done. It's endless...

We arrived in Savannah yesterday. Ran into a few problems in Brunswick, and took a leisurely three days to get here. Unfortunately, this, as you might know, is the coldest weather Savannah has experienced in a long time. In fact, the coldest weather in about 30 years. It's rumored that the lawyers in town are so cold that they've got their hands in their own pockets. Highly irregular.

GOLFITO to FT. LAUDERDALE
In general, cruisers spend what they have available, so the answer to "How much is enough" is very personal. Glenn Tieman is one the leading contenders for the record for how little you can spend while cruising, but I like to eat a little more than rice, coconuts and cabbage and drink a lot more than water. Thus I usually spend a little more. My target is a number around $3000 USD per month. I've found that I can live quite comfortably aboard, without sparing too many of what may be considered luxuries.

The single largest expense getting to Savannah was the freight fee aboard the Federal Patroller, between Golfito Costa Rica and Ft. Lauderdale Florida. That one item set me back approximately $15,000.00 USD or approximately one year in the University of California for tuition, room and board for my daughter Alyson. After that hiccup, the additional expenses seemed small for what I'll describe as a typical voyage. Typical, aside from the rain here in Savannah (normally, I won't travel in the rain and would wait until it had passed). About 100 miles in total between Brunswick and Savannah, I used about 20 gallons of fuel to get here from Brunswick. We're at the Isle Of hope Marina for a few months, which is setting me back about $550.00 USD/month. Naty flies back on the 5th, and I return to California near the end of January. No reservation yet. I may take the train, as my fear of an underwear bomber has finally borne fruit, and we may all be forced to strip naked prior to boarding...

I replaced 4 batteries ($800), had a haul-out in Brunswick ( $425), new bottom paint ($1050), the new windlass is still in the box ($2200), installation I will do myself in a couple more days and the new head is finally working ($450). Apparently, head discharge hoses can become so occluded over time with all the urine running through them that they become completely clogged, so that even a new head (the one I brought to El Salvador last year as carry on luggage because United wouldn't ship it as regular luggage despite the fact it was in it's original shipping container) can't flush properly. A new discharge hose fixed the problem. Life is good. I don't have to defecate in a plastic bag or over the side anymore.

The trip back to California was much of the same. 'Ya gets what ya pay for.'

REPAIRS EN_ROUTE
Some things had to be repaired en-route, either because they were single point failures i.e no back up system, or they were required for safety reasons or navigation. While in Mexican waters, we had an unexpected wind shift right about sundown, when a mild sea breeze became in mere seconds a 15 or 20 knot land breeze that caught us unawares, breaking the boom vang and bending the bow pulpit when the preventers failed to keep the sails to starboard causing an unexpected jibe. Ouch! That one traumatized Naty (who was at the helm at the time) and cost about $600 USD, which was a bargain compared to US prices for an equivalent repair.

FUEL
Fuel of course is an on-going expense. While in Mexico, the price was subsidized by the Mexican government and was in retrospect surprisingly reasonable. I was paying the equivalent of about $2.25 USD per gallon, and I have not seen that price for a long time since I left Mexican waters. Food was cheap through-out Central America as long as you stayed away from imported i.e. US food and bought the local variety. Alcohol was all over the map, and it paid to buy what was brewed, fermented or distilled locally as all governments seem to put taxes on the imports.

NAVIGATION
The cost of navigation was moderately high due to my preference for a comprehensive and accurate solution to the challenge. Years ago in California, I had purchased a Garmin 276C chart plotter which I am still using. The 276C is a portable plotter that I have become highly dependent on, both for it's convenience and accuracy. The 276C comes with one chart region and over the years I have added additional charts to my collection, at roughly $100 USD per region. On the east coast of the US, I have found to my chagrin that a region isn't very large, and thus there are lots of chart regions required to get very far. In Central America, I supplemented the Garmin GPS charts with cruising guides, such as Charlie's Charts of Mexico and Charlie's Charts of Costa Rica and on the east coast, the chart plotter was supplemented by a copy of The Intracoastal Waterway, Norfolk to Miami: A spiral bound paper, cockpit cruising guide.

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