Quick poll

[northbay]

Cam a question, you stated that "passagemaking costs are significant".
How so? I understand your other points just not sure on this one.

Bob @ North Bay

[RAGTIMEDON]

A cruising couple we met in our marina in October had left Norway in May 2005, wanderind the world. If you google BIKA, which is the name of their boat, you can find out their path which had led them to the Mississippi River in mid-America after 3-1/2 years. They told us their budget ran about 1,000 U S dollars per month on a Contessa 26. That included England, France, Spain, Portugal, some time in the Med, north Africa, 19 days across the Atlantic, nearly a year in the Carribean, U S east coast, Great Lakes to Chicago, and motoring down the Illinois River. The river passages were the most expensive because they had to buy fuel in the Hudson, the Erie Canal, and the Illinois. There's your passagemaking costs! And if you are on a time schedule, you may even burn fuel in areas where you might otherwise be able to sail. While crossing and spending time in the islands they used sail power propulsion and solar power for radio, lights, etc. That's a pretty simple lifestyle. I would probably spend 4 times as much and my wife would still feel deprived!

[camaraderie]

NorthBay...By passagemaking costs I refer to the fuel used to get there and back and to the customs fees...($300).

Joey...if you want to take your Oday to the Abacos from Florida for a month with minimal expenses...assuming 2 people here's what I would consider minimal:
Passport fees?
$150 for customs
$600 for food and laundry.
$100 bucks for hot freshwater showers (10 each)
$400 for boat and dinghy fuel. (100 gallons)
$100 Water is free at fuel docks but I recommend bottled for drinking

Of course...prepping the boat for crossing the Gulf Stream, insurance if you get it and additional $$ for recreation/fun budget are not included in the above.

[danielgoldberg]

We're hoping to pull the plug a few years out for a sabbatical (need to settle a few things at home, work, etc. before we could do so). Not yet sure if we'll do a full year or just a winter season. Our thinking is to head to George Town (been there by plane, stayed at the Peace and Plenty, hung out with our cruiser friends, and just loved it). Not yet sure if we would make a B-line to G-Town and then hit the Abacos on the way home, or the reverse.

Anyway, cost of the adventure obviously is a near-constant source of analysis for us. I understand fully that you can do it on nothing or everything, depending on your perspective. We plan to anchor out, have fairly extensive solar panels and a wind generator (not definite on the wind), so hopefully we won't "need" to be shoreside that much or refuel all that often once we get the hook down. That said, we'll be going with our two boys, which means we'll be spending money and/or resources entertaining them (lights, DVDs, shoreside excursions, etc.). We also like to eat out every now and again, particularly when we're in foreign areas, not to mention hang in a bar or two.

We're using $30,000 to $40,000 for the year as our baseline cost for the trip. That excludes insurance, setting up the boat, equipment, clothes, etc., but does include boat maintenance, fuel, entry fees, dockage/moorings for those times when I'm sure we'll be forced to take them, food, booze, entertainment, shoreside excursions, etc. The sense I get is that's a reasonable range, with some margin of error to be expected.

Frankly, I think the biggest variable on the cost will be the trip down the ICW. There's a piece of me that wants to go outside and just get down to Florida, but on the other hand, we've never done the Ditch, and I would like to experience that (not to mention have my kids experience it, though I suspect it might be a bit boring for them). And experiencing the ditch would include at least some exploration of some of the areas we have not really experienced, which only adds to cost.

Anyway, that expectation and perspective explains why I thought $150/week sounded awfully low. But I think your $150 excluded some of the things we mentioned, either because you just didn't count them as part of your day-to-day living expenses and you put them in a different "bucket," or you weren't encumbered by some of the things we will have (i.e., entertaining two very active little boys, and as much as I would like to say otherwise, I suspect telling them that they can't get that ice cream or bag of chips every now and again is not going to play very well).

Thanks Cam, very informative answer, as always.

Originally Posted by camaraderie

We didn't use much fuel at all while there Dan though if you motored around a lot it would be costly. Food is expensive there but we would eat fairly simply and not spend a lot on the things that are really outrageous like chips etc.
You can also catch fish and lobster to reduce the costs. This was Abacos BTW.
You can easily spend a LOT more by eating out, staying in marinas or taking mooring balls, drinking.
When I say we lived fine on $150 a week...I mean there were LOTS and LOTS of weeks when that was our average even on a big boat and we could quite comfortably do that if we had a budget of that amount for extended times.
We DID however spend a lot more than that sometimes and by choice or by "force" when things broke or we needed to stay at marinas for various reasons or when we felt like getting some restaurant meals.
We didn't do much that cost $$, and yet we never felt deprived. The beauty of living on the hook in the Abacos is enjoying the waters and cays and hanging out with fellow cruisers, none of which costs anything. We would have movie nights with friends sharing DVD's, play Boggle and other games and snorkle on the reefs and hunt lobster and conch. A different lifestyle.
I would emphasize that you can't budget $150 a week for TOTAL expense since maintenance, insurance, medical and passagemaking costs are all significant. Just meant to say that DAILY living expenses can be pretty minimal without needing to feel deprived in any way!

[camaraderie]

Daniel...absolutely...I was just trying to be specific about what it costs as minimums to hang out in the Abacos.
I think your numbers for your sized boat are pretty realistic for longer term cruising in a "decent" style. The only thing I would suggest is to budget for maintenance separately from everything else and "bank" it. My experience is that you can easily get lulled into a false sense of security, spending very little some years....and then get blasted in a subsequent year...so it is helpful to establish a "fund" so it doesn't feel so bad when the chickens come home to roost!
Much less concern on this if you're only going for a year and especially with a new boat like yours, but thought I'd mention that for others.

I second your desire to see the ICW hot spots. We were simply in awe of all that we were able to see and do during our first trip...beauty, history, out of the way gems of towns, wonderful small cities. It is WELL worth the trip ONCE especially if you can take your time and not have to push for 50-70 miles a day. Allow 45 days from Norfolk and you will have time to enjoy it all and not feel exhausted by the time you get to FL.