Cost to Cruise: November

I know, it’s not the Bahamas update you were hoping for. We’re struggling to find enough bandwidth to upload photos. In the meantime, please enjoy the budget-busting month from our last hurrah in the US….dsc_1581

So, you can choose to laugh or you can choose to cry, I guess. We’ll go with laughter. The money just flowed out the door like water this month, as we stocked up in all categories. We are under the impression that all things will be more expensive outside of the US, at least while we’re in the islands; and there are plenty of things that you simply can’t get. Our boat is teeming with pasta, toothpaste, motor oil, soy sauce, and fishing lures; the Kindles are well-stocked; we have at least one kind of chart to cover us all the way to Baja Mexico (and three types to guide us through the shifting sands of the Bahamas). Let’s take a look, shall we?

Marinas: $241
Grocery: $2015.56
Restaurant: $115.10
Supplies: $1264.70
Booze: $125.76
Ice Cream: $39.28
Laundry: $35
Transportation: $181
Communications: $276.62
Entertainment: $46.40
Pump Out: $15
Boat Parts: $953.99
Fuel: $177.24 diesel; $131.99 stove fuel; $11.10 dinghy gas
Insurance: $22
Bank Fees: $9
Grand Total: $5661.51

A couple of notes on the above insanity:

  • We stayed in marinas a lot in Florida, but it was almost always at a mooring, so our expenses went way down there
  • Instead of getting the boat south to visit family and friends in Miami and Fort Lauderdale, we rented a car; that accounts for the big number in transportation
  • We hooked up our sat phone, and subscribed to a fancier, not-free version of Predict Wind, to improve our weather info in remote places; communications is going to be a bigger category for us moving forward
  • We’ve heard alcohol for our stove is really hard to find in the islands, so we have enough to cover us for a couple months
  • Alcohol beats out ice cream for the first time!

Our categories will be shifting in the coming months. We’ll be adding in country entrance fees, and bank fees are sure to go up, so we’re trying to include them in our costs; we think we’re done with the pump-out fees for the foreseeable future. We’ll probably pay for water at least once in the Bahamas. And there’s an entire expense that we haven’t been including, for security reasons: gifts. We can’t have the grandparents know how much we’re dropping on their birthdays, or the kids anticipating a bit payoff! But with Christmas approaching and Milou in the thick of what we call “birthday season,” it is an area where some money is being spent. We’ve been on the receiving end, as well: our restaurant expenses are down because we were taken out quite a bit in November, and the kids are scooting around on a brand-new SUP, among other things.

One more note on gifts, and spending money in general. About half of our expenses under “supplies” went to one item: a backup iPad. We use our iPad for hours every single day, and are so married to it for charting, we didn’t want to be caught unawares by the death of our best piece of electronica. We chose to shop for this precious item in a Best Buy on the Monday after Thanksgiving. Holy cow, you guys. I know it’s more or less a requirement for every sailing blog on the planet to hold forth on the horrors of American consumerism, and pat themselves on the back for living above the fray, so I don’t want to blether on too much about it—and in light of our recent spending spree in Florida, it would be pretty hypocritical of me to be smug here—but we are very happy to be spending December away from the feeding frenzy going on back home at the moment. We’ll gear up for Christmas in smaller ways, decorating the boat and baking some cookies, and we have a few gifts saved up for stocking stuffers, but it’s all going to be much more low-key. Removed from the marketing, we just don’t seem too pressed to purchase our way into the perfect holiday.

Update from the Bahamas…

After a less-than-ideal crossing, we are in the Bahamas! Currently, we are hanging out in Highbourne Cay with three other families, waiting for the high winds to relax a little. Internet connectivity here is terrible, rare, and expensive, so real posts will have to wait a bit. We may be putting up some photos on Facebook, so come join us at Deb Lease, if you’d like.

In the community of cruisers. This is not a metaphor.

I mean, we are physically situated in an actual Cruising Village. I’ve never seen anything like it.

Vero Beach has a rep as being a good place to gather for Thanksgiving, and it did not disappoint. With a free bus service to downtown, a clean and friendly marina, and moorings for only $15 a night, it’s a great place to get ready for the leap to the Bahamas. We’re here with people who’ve been making that trip for decades, and are happy to answer questions without forcing their personal view on you.

Plenty of mooring balls with three boats hanging off them
Plenty of mooring balls with three boats hanging off them

Because Vero is so popular, we’ve been rafted up on mooring balls–something we’ve also never seen. Fortunately for us, we were paired with our friends on Perla.

Happy to wake up next to this family!
Happy to wake up next to this family!
Lining up for the food
Lining up for the food

The Thanksgiving Day potluck was epic (although we hear attendance is down). Cruisers who have swallowed the anchor and accepted land-based life provide turkeys and hams, and the rest of the fleet signs up for whatever else they can pull off from the galley. We failed to bring chairs–turns out we don’t have any–but the food was great.

After the meal, the musically-inclined gathered on the back benches for some tunes. F was honored to be included, and led a few songs; she also got to rock out on Drunken Sailor….for about 20 verses. Thanks especially to the guys on Salty Paws for including her!dscf0855

And now we wait. We thought there’d be a great weather window opening up to jump to the Bahamas on Tuesday, but my mom is visiting Fort Lauderdale to get some face time with the grandkids before we exit the country, so we’ll miss that crossing opportunity. We’d planned to bring the boat down south to be near her, but the weather’s not so hot on the outside, and the ICW is shallow here and rife with timed bridges, so we decided to keep the boat in Vero and rent a car. We’ll commute (and enjoy the exotic nature of driving).

Florida tries to win us back

Ok, Florida. Possibly, there are some ways in which you are not terrible.

Sunset behind our mooring field neighbors, St. Augustine
Sunset behind our mooring field neighbors, St. Augustine
Fortressy
Fortressy

We managed to have a couple of really nice days in Saint Augustine. Both Wildcat and Mafalda were in the marina’s mooring field with us, so we spent some time walking around the old Spanish fort together. I’m not sure if this is still true, but growing up in the far northern wilds of Minnesota, I don’t remember much discussion about the Spanish influence in the United States—it was non-stop British history. It’s easy to forget that the Spanish had a permanent settlement in what is now the US, long before Jamestown was trying to work it out.

View from the fort
View from the fort
Very enthusiastic weaponry discussion
Very enthusiastic weaponry discussion

It’s surprising to find an old-school Spanish fortress on American soil as well. The National Park Service has been running a promotion where any family with a student in fourth grade can have free access to the parks, but apparently there’s some paperwork that needs to be downloaded in advance. We missed that step, but couldn’t feel too badly about spending $20 to check out what’s basically a castle, complete with weapons discussion by a very enthusiastic park ranger. All the boat kids were horrified with the glass cannonballs, designed to shatter on the decks of ships and cut up the sailors’ feet. Yikes.

Sentries.
Sentries.

St. Augustine was absolutely very touristy near the water, but somehow it managed not to be tacky and horrible. The older parts of town are right by the marina (often the case; harbor=town, for the most part), and the streets are great for strolling around. Also: excellent ice cream! Aaaand—we heard someone playing an acoustic guitar version of Men Without Hats’ “Safety Dance.” How do you even top that?

Strolling with ice cream in Saint Augustine
Strolling with ice cream in Saint Augustine

From there, we had an uneventful passage to Titusville in company with Mafalda, with one overnight stop in Daytona Beach. On the ICW (as in the Potomac and the Hudson), stopping for the night sometimes means moving the boat out of the marked channel to a spot with good depth and calling it a night. It’s often not very scenic, and we usually don’t go to shore; it’s just a pit stop, like pulling your RV to the side of the highway when you’re too tired to keep going. That was our Daytona experience, but since it wasn’t even spring break, we figured that was fine.

Kid party on the catamaran!
Kid party on the catamaran!

Titusville was maybe not our favorite place, but it did have a few advantages. We mostly anchored outside the municipal marina’s mooring field, but we did pay for one night’s mooring—although we didn’t bother moving our boat. We just wanted access to the showers, internet and dinghy dock. We had fellow kids boats to hang out with—Wildcat, Mafalda, and our old friends on Perla, whom we hadn’t seen since Annapolis. Eric and Cynthia had a car, so I managed to get in an initial provisioning run at the Walmart (the first of many such trips; getting the boat prepped for remote islands takes some work). But the highlight of Titusville came on Saturday, where we had a great view from our boats of a rocket launch at the nearby Kennedy Space Center.

Waiting for the launch
Waiting for the launch
Still waiting. Any minute.
Still waiting. Any minute.

Yes, it is still pretty cold (a cold front tore through over the weekend, and we actually saw temps in the low 40’s). Yes, we are constantly stressed out about the possibility of going aground. Yes, we have seen some pretty big cockroaches waltzing through the free book exchange at the marina. But Florida is starting to grow on us. We are fans of quiet travel and isolated anchorages, but for the moment, we’re enjoying the company of the vast and varied group of people moving south on the water. Certain areas we’ve passed through have been beautiful. Excitement about spotting dolphins has been superseded by excitement about spotting manatees and crocodiles (alligators? both?). And seeing all the pics of the snow up north has reminded us how different, and interesting, and fun this particular season will be for us all.

Liftoff!
Liftoff!

Just sitting here in the mud like fools.

We’re not really putting up long posts at the moment, but I feel a little guilty about our lack of info, so: here are some glorious pictures of us aground off Amelia Island in the ICW.

Yup. Stuck.
Yup. Stuck.
Setting the anchor so we don't drift further into the shallows when the tide came up.
Setting the anchor so we don’t drift further into the shallows when the tide came up. No kedging this time; we managed to get stuck on a rising tide, so we just sat tight for a few hours.

Today we’re lounging happily in the sun in Titusville, waiting to watch a rocket launch tomorrow evening; but as the pics attest: it’s not all wine and roses, folks! Hope this makes our northern friends feel better about the approaching snow.