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Month 9 Expenses & Costs of Cruising

12K views 52 replies 13 participants last post by  outbound 
#1 ·
This past month we traveled from Vero Beach Florida to St Augustine Fl. Not that far as we had some family things to be done and St Augustine was a good location to do it from.

We spent 13 days in a marina at Vero Beach on a mooring and 1-month at St Augustine on a mooring. Since we paid for the Vero one when we left and the St Augustine when we arrived all are on this month's numbers.

My daughter moved from New Hampshire to Florida and my wife went to help with that. So that was unusual expenses.

Did some standard small stuff on the boat and installed a holding tank vent filter and had the bottom cleaned. Got a couple of sun shade tarps for the boat also. So even though nothing big happened it still adds up

Entertainment expenses were for some Kindle books and a few movies.

Fees were $79.29 I got back from my credit card rewards, but $150 for a professional certification fee having to do with my wife who just couldn't talk herself out of it.

We got food but didn't do a restocking. Also got some clothes and shoes that are in the "food" number


The total was $ 3,574.81, that breaks down as follows:

Food, soda, alcohol, clothing, sundries - $ 625.25
Boat upgrades, repairs, maintenance - $ 399.12
Fuel (diesel, gas, propane) - $ 54.38
Dining out - $ 1,037.32
Entertainment - $ 108.74
Communication, storage, shipping - $ 284.05
Fees - $ 70.73
Marina - $ 616.74
Medical - $ 22.27
Transportation - $ 67.33
Daughter moving - $ 288.88
 
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#6 ·
Great info. It's interesting to see how Dining Out can really add to the expenses. I've recently started using a grocery delivery service and found it very convenient and economical. Even with a $9.95 delivery charge. I order on line and everything gets delivered to the house. There is a $60 minimum for each order but, I am not wandering down the supermarket isles picking up things I did not really need. I've done a lot of cooking and have a freezer full of prepared meals so I have not been going out to dinner in awhile. The other night coming back from the boatyard I stopped to pick up some chinese take out. The bill came out to $11.50. It was a wake up as to how expensive even take out can be. Whereas $60 in groceries can feed me for at least a week.
In a few weeks I'm planing on provisioning the boat using this service instead of heading to the supermarket myself. I'd like to see if I could use this service (if it's available) while cruising and have provisions delivered to a marina I may be anchored or moored near. It would save time and Taxi costs. Though I'll still eat out on shore especially when exploring a new port.
 
#8 · (Edited)
Do you have a post or website with all nine months and also what your boat is?
I'm assessing if I can do it on 2.5k a month. 3-years from now (literally) Likely a used 2008-2010 Lagoon 440/450, anchoring out, minimal eating out (don't do it on land now), minimal if any alcohol at all (6 pack a month?). I can do almost all repairs myself.
Seems biggest factors are about 1.5% boat value for repairs/upkeep and 1.5-1.8% boat value in insurance. Assuming a $350k boat = $440/mo repairs and $525/mo insurance or $965/mo. This leaves roughly $1,500 a month living. Looks like I might not have enough $.
$375/mo and $450 for a $300k boat = $825 month.

Looks like dining out is the biggest difference between you and I. I figure about 1-2 cheap meals a week MAX but likely less.
 
#15 ·
Personally I rather enjoy doing most of my drinking and meals in the cockpit while at anchor. You can keep the noisy beachfront bars and restaurants blasting Reggae and Jimmy Buffet tunes. Though an occasional foray to some of the local bistros and shacks can be a real tasty treat.
 
#25 · (Edited)
I doubt it passed through less hands. I bet that the transportation out to and storage on the boat puts the foods at a lot more risk than it had being cooked at a restaurant. In the Bahamas I noticed that frozen food was rock solid, much more frozen than in the States. Then it occurred to me that it was that way so it would make it from the store to house. Even now that I'm back in the States the time sometimes that it takes to buy food and get it back to the boat can be pretty long.

But it doesn't matter. If people don't want to eat out and need a reason beyond cost it's OK with me. I made the dining a separate line item in the budget threads so people can decide how their budget will (might) be different.
 
#26 ·
In the Bahamas I noticed that frozen food was rock solid, much more frozen than in the States. Then it occurred to me that it was that way so it would make it from the store to house.
You should be at the store when the "frozen" food comes to the store. It arrives in Nassau on a freezer container from The US, gets unloaded and sits in the sun on a dock for a random time until it is loaded into a non-freezer container to transport it to an out island loading dock, where it sits in the sun for a random period of time until it is loaded into a hot truck and taken to a store, where it sits in the sun for a random period of time before the employees get around to putting all of the completely thawed and often rotten food into the mega freezers to make it rock solid. Much more frozen than in the States...

Mark
 
#29 ·
Month 9 Expenses & Costs of Cruisingl

We try to talk with fellas cruisers before going out to eat and get recommendations. Then try to eat where the locals eat not the charter/cruise ship crowd. This decreases expense but also increases diversity. It's great fun to meet other cruisers in a new island and explore. It's even more fun to go out to dinner with locals you've befriended.
 
#32 ·
I'm not cruising, but I love going out to eat when I travel. It's one of the best parts.

We usually sit at the bar or counter, if there is one, so we can have more interaction with the server and other customers.

A good way to find the fun, local restaurants and bars is to ask your server where they go to eat or hang out in their time off.
 
#33 ·
Don's budget is definitely a major cause of food poisoning worldwide. Just another way he is doing it wrong... :)

I don't know why he started this food poisoning thread. Probably just to brag.

We rarely eat fish that have been dead more than an hour. Sometimes they are still wiggling. Cooking them just ruins the flavor - a bit of rice, nori, and wasabi is all you need.

Where we usually cruise, tree bark is more edible than the beef.

If we ever do put something on the grill, we don't need a stinking thermometer to tell us when it is done. The flames and shouting from the adjacent boats works just fine.

The largest danger we find in US restaurants is they serve us meals that weigh more than we do. Covered in cheese.

Mark
 
#34 ·
Beef in the US is excellent. Not so much elsewhere. Unless we catch the fish away from islands don't eat it. Chicken and pork are ubiquitous and generally good. Goat turns out to not be that bad along with lamb. Vacuum bagging and freezing when you hit a good supermarket like in the French islands gives you delicious meals on the boat. You need to approach eating out as a entertainment not a regular source of nutrition.
It hasn't been a budget buster. Secure internet and phone is another matter.
 
#36 ·
I tired this "eat where the locals eat" in the Bahamas and for the most part I just couldn't walk that far each way!

BTW - in the total budget scheme you have to consider that a good portion of dining out also goes into the entertainment line. I don't consider it a budget buster if I spend most of the day walking around seeing the sights etc. and at the end of the day we go to dinner out. I'm sorry if too many cruisers have to do free entertainment and then go back to the boat for a meal of "what's on the boat".
 
#38 ·
Ditto, Don. Do what you want and enjoy what you do.

As for free entertainment, in my case, I was often the entertainment in the ports of call - that's how I beefed up my cruising kitty, and I loved every minute of it. On top of it all, I often get free eats from the cruising ladies and free drinks from their spouses. Some of those ladies were fantastic chefs and made some incredible dishes.



Best job I ever had, though everyone said it wasn't a real job because I was having too much fun.

As someone posted above, the best beef comes from the US, and I heartily agree. I've tasted beef from all over the world, mostly when I was young and employed by the US Navy, and nothing compared to what we have here in the US when it came to beef.

I eat a lot of fish, mostly inshore species, but I thoroughly enjoy fresh caught and grilled bluefin and yellowfin tuna steaks, which I usually baste with Yoshida Gourmet Sauce while they're slowly grilling on the rail grill. The best tasting fish in Florida are mangrove snapper, followed by grunt, yellowtail snapper, grouper, and a host of others. However, get north of Norfolk, VA and I'll drop a line near one of the inshore wrecks for sea bass, porgy and best of all, tautog. Nothing, absolutely nothing, tastes better than beer battered tautog. Mahi Mahi is pretty good fresh caught, but is even better when brined and smoked with hickory chips.

Sorry for the rant - made me hungry, supper time,

Gary
 
#44 ·
Hear of folks thinking they will decrease expenses by catching rain water (25 cents/g and up) and fishing. Believe this is wishful thinking in the Caribbean or even New England. Caribbean is basically a desert in the winter and reef caught fish run the risk of making you quite ill.
I fish a lot during the summer. Getting a keeper striper is not an every day affair in New England. Getting a mahi-mahi or yellow fin off your Cuban yoyos isn't either. Caught rain off New England, unless it's been raining a long time, is often dirty.
With just two on the boat using solar and wind for power did the math. Our little Cape Horn extreme will pay for itself in ~ 10 years. The big expense is filters. Use a lot more of them when up north. Probably quicker pay off down south but don't know south east coastal water quality. Even if it didn't having an RO unit has made a huge difference in quality of life.
Basically a catch and release fisherman. Exceptions are big rainbow and brown trout, sea bass and the occasional striper. Also put every pickerel I catch on the side of the pond for the raccoons and foxes because over time if you have pickerel you won't have much in the way of game fish. Someone once said you could buy four fish for the cost of stuff you use up catching one.
So don't think fishing is anything more than than a very pleasant diversion.
 
#45 ·
If you change "Caribbean" to "populated eastern Caribbean", then I agree. But things are much, much different elsewhere in the Caribbean sea. For both fish and water catchment (use a filter if concerned).

Watermarkers should never be seen in economic terms. Saving money isn't their purpose. Fishing can be a significant source of food, as well as fun. We live on fish we catch easily, and the gear to support this is relatively cheap (a pointy stick works). Put in economic terms, the commercial value of the fish we catch is thousands of dollars, if not 10x that. Just try to find 2hr fresh hogfish, cubera, permit, grouper, or 6lb spiny lobster at a store. Makes my fishing gear seem really inexpensive....

Mark
 
#47 · (Edited)
Denny ciguetera will make you very sick for a long time. What's just as bad is there maybe a latency before you get sick. So you maybe on passage after having left feeling fine.
In spite of locals saying they can tell if a fish has the toxin by whether it tarnishes a silver spoon or attracts flies or smell in fact you can't.
Along the leewards fish caught off the north side of the islands at least a 1/2m away from any reef maybe safer but the only way to be safe in the tropics is no reef fish and only pelagic fish in very deep waters.
This is like the rain thing. Unfortunately you can't depend on fish for routine nutrition nor rain for water.
In fact when the Sahara winds are blowing after it rains we look to wash the boat to get the sand and dust off that collects in ugly streaks.
 
#48 · (Edited)
It depends. The statement that reef fish run the risk of making you quite ill is correct in the absolute sense (like eating tuna runs the risk of giving you mercury poisoning), but the relative picture ranges from don't fish at all on reefs in certain areas, to certain fish are OK in some areas, to catch anything you want with no worry in some areas.

The problem is ciguatera, which is a bad thing for humans. This is an algae poison that is stored harmlessly in fish, and builds up in them as they get larger. The Bahamas definitely have ciguatera, but it seems to be mostly specific to certain areas and certain fish. For example, I personally would never eat barracuda of any size anywhere in the Bahamas nor any fish longer than about my arm, the Berries seem to have unusual amounts of ciguatera in groupers, I have never heard of ciguatera in any fish of any size in the raggeds, although I avoid certain fish and sizes just out of prudence. In addition to barracuda, certain species of grouper, all parrotfish, and possibly cubera (I have a weak spot for cubera and have been lucky) should probably be avoided everywhere in the Bahamas. Luckily, Nassau grouper are common and seem to be ciguatera-free. Hogfish is considered so also.

South of the Bahamas, the Eastern Caribe has ciguatera down to around St. Lucia or so, then pretty much becomes free of it. However, there really isn't any reef fishing to be done in this area because the fish have been wiped out by locals and development.

The Western Caribe is free of ciguatera in general. Everything is game there, and I have taken and eaten 50lb fish with no issue. Giant barracuda almost flop themselves on the BBQ for you.

If a place has recently been ravaged by a storm strong enough to tear up the reef system, it is best to avoid fish from that area.

Don't rely on any "local knowledge" or such - use it only as a general guideline and use your brain when evaluating. I don't know how many times I have been told by locals about sure-fire methods to tell if a fish is bad or not, or that catching fish on one part of a reef is fine, while the other parts are not. Every single one of them will relate personal tales of poisoning.

Mark
 
#49 ·
Mark agree the watermaker should be viewed as a life changing device. Amazing how the absence of concerns about water availability changes your life. Still this thread is about 9m cost so put in the rough economics.
This winter will be the windwards. You're right the whole rim of the Caribbean Sea is overpopulated during high season.Still you can stay off moorings and off the grid for much of the time. For us with what's going on in Venezuela and a desire to summer in New England the western Caribbean isn't practical. It's good to hear things are different there. Would note bent the elbow with someone who came back from sailing the Belize area. Sounded much the same from the little it was talked about. Conversation was focused on other things.
 
#50 ·
Mark a thread hijack. Where do you summer. I really want to cruise the western Caribbean. All unknown to me. But seems the sail back to Grenada/Trinidad is the wrong way and the sail back to Florida can be quite nasty.
Done some of the Bahamas and have little interest in going back.
 
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