by Lin Pardey
This is the final installment of a four-part Caribbean Compass series by LinPardey, adapting and updating material from her book, Cost Conscious Cruiser. You can find previous installments at the links below:
- Cost Control While You Cruise, Part 1
- Cost Control While You Cruise, Part 2
- Cost Control While You Cruise, Part 3
Spend Money in Rewarding Ways
Spend money on upgrading your sails before they blow out. Have the seams restitched as soon as you notice any sun deterioration. Add new chafe or sun-protection patches early. Consider adding a full-length 4-inch folded leech tape when your mainsail or headsails become two or three years old. Remember that your sails are the component that keeps your boat unstoppable (see The Capable Cruiser: “Cruising Canvas Care”).
Avoid flying home because you are homesick. Your trip home will cost far more than just the airfares. You must also consider gifts, car rental, living and hotel costs while there, storage fees for your boat, and the temptations of your local chandlery. The only times my late husband, Larry, and I traveled back home was when we sailed our boat there, when there was a death in the family, and when we delivered someone’s boat for them. This last option, though, is one to consider. A delivery job or crewing position could give you the money to cover these costs.
Here’s another way to overcome a feeling of homesickness: Use some of the money saved by not flying home to rent a lovely hotel room for some family and friends. Invite them to join you for a festival in La Paz, Mexico, or a walk through the mountains of New Zealand — you’ll cut their costs and add an interesting element to your cruising style.
Treats Are OK
Do not try to save money by avoiding all shoreside treats — whether meals or horseback riding or occasional car rentals. If you eliminate treats like these, you and your partner may feel you have given up everything to live on a boat with little reward to balance it. A definite highlight of our Brazilian sojourn cost us about $400 and was worth every bit of that and more. We secured Taleisin in a safe marina right next to the center of Rio de Janeiro, got out our bikes, packed a travel bag, and bicycled four miles (six km) to a well-recommended family-style hotel overlooking the Copacabana Beach. For three nights and four days, we joined life along 14 miles of the world’s most beautiful, most joyously used beaches.
It’s OK to include expensive-sounding countries in your itinerary. Avoiding places such as Norway, Italy, or New Caledonia, just because of their higher costs of living, can be a mistake. If you stock up in lower-priced areas, you can keep your costs down. And, as there are fewer cruisers in many of these places, you will have an easier time meeting local folks. Larry and I definitely found that to be the case in Norway. And now, my partner, David, and I are finding the same in New Caledonia.
If you are earning as you cruise, you’ll find that wages offered in these expensive destinations offset the costs. And, in many of the more expensive countries, it is easier to get around the work restrictions than it is in less-developed areas.
Finally, three places we don’t feel it is wise to try to save money all relate to tiring and boring cruising-related jobs. It definitely pays to have your laundry done on shore. Is it logical or fair to ask a person who is successful in their own right to spend hours hand-scrubbing clothes? If at all possible, wouldn’t it be more encouraging and less aggravating to spend even $40 or $50 to have someone do up those three huge bags of soiled clothes after a long passage? There will occasionally be times when you have no other choice, and if you both pitch in to scrub, wring, and hang clothes once a week, it can be a chatty, even charming experience. But whenever possible, definitely pay for laundry service.
The same advice goes for taxis to carry your once-a-week load of groceries back to the boat and also to deliver the piles of food you’ll need at reprovisioning time. By walking or busing one way, then using a taxi to return to the boat, you may well get better prices, since you then expand your choices to include out-of-town shops and discount warehouses.
As the ultimate sign that you’ve found a good balance among your cruising funds, your time, and your ability to earn as you go, consider hiring help for the dirty part of the year, haulout time — someone to scrub, prepare and paint the bottom of your wind-powered magic carpet. This choice might even save you money, as it could reduce the cost of additional days in the yard.
There is no simple formula that will ensure you get the best value from your cruising funds, the most pleasure from your adventure. As a review of the forgoing suggestions will show, the two major challenges facing you are learning to control maintenance costs by keeping your boat unstoppable and balancing the very sociable life you will be entering.
Most of us find that the bonus of cruising is the people you meet along the way, other cruisers as well as locals. Because cruising leaves you free of the strictures of shore life, it is tempting to spend every afternoon and evening socializing. Full-time socializing at home ashore would be expensive and impractical, and it is no different when out cruising. Find the right balance and you can truly feel you are enjoying a champagne cruise on a beer budget.
Cost Conscious Cruiser and The Capable Cruiser are available from Amazon. Check out Pardey’s blog at Pardeytime.blogspot.com.
