Crusin' Musings
04 July 2010
• Halifax, NS
by Mike
Here we are, a couple of weeks into life on the dirt, and we have settled in to life in the apartment and in the job schedules; Barb has two jobs! Although life is back into the grind that we had run away to sea to avoid, we are paying down the credit card debt; we are saving for new sails; and we will have enough money to pay off the yard bill next spring so the plan is unfolding as intended.
I can't imagine that too much of what we are doing now is interesting enough to blog so I though that I would put down some Cruisin' Musings. This is sort of an after action report or lessons learned that after a career in the military I am quite used to writing. I figure that there are several types of folks reading the blog - family and friends of ours who we have actually met who are simply interesting in following where we are; folks that are "cruising curious" who may never intend to join the community afloat but are interested in following others that do; folks that are planning to make the jump and are interested in learning the ropes from the experiences of others; and others who are already cruising and are interested in following the experiences of their fellow cruisers to learn of new cruising grounds, marinas towns to visit, etc. So, we decided that we'd share a few thoughts from our recent cruise.
First, there is lots of advice available from various sources that I won't repeat here except if we feel that there might be some extenuating factors that should be considered. For example, the obvious way to stay within budget is to anchor out as much as possible and avoid marinas either docking or on moorings. That advice is obvious. A marina or even a mooring for a 40' boat will cost you anywhere from $20 to $100 a night depending on where you might be. Indeed, in some places such as NYC you can pay almost $200 a night to sleep in your own bed, and nothing special added! What may not be so obvious is that the advice is sometimes easier said that followed, especially if you have a dog that needs to be walked and there is nowhere to anchor from where you can dingy ashore to poopambulate the pooch, repairs to make that require shore power to run the tools, or a member of the crew that finds it easier to step down to the dock that to climb down a ladder to the dingy. Add to that the laziness of the Captain who doesn't need too much persuasion to not have to raise and lower the dingy and raise and lower the outboard and you may find yourself with an unplanned drain on the kitty. We have decided that on our next cruise that we'll plan for a certain percentage of our time to be spent in marinas and budget accordingly. Moreover, if we don't spent one month's marina budget in that month we will carry it over into the next. That way if we have problems we'll have some financial flex to deal with the situation. The big thing will be to avoid the temptation to use next month's budget in this month.
Having pontificated through all that, we are including a list of mooring fields, yacht clubs and marinas that we have had personal experience within the US and from which we feel that you get a reasonable value for dollar. There are probably more like them along the way and some even in the same community, it's just that these are the ones that we have visited.
Gloucester Mooring field: There are marinas and clubs in the area but the mooring field is the best bang for your buck. It is managed by the municipality so the profit motive is minimized and they run a pump out service that comes with the mooring fee.
City Island Yacht Clubs: Considering that this is NYC at $15-20 a night this is a great deal! There are three or four yacht clubs on the west side of the island (which is part of the Bronx, so you can situate yourself) and they all cooperate as far as tender service is concerned so that you will always have access to a tender. That's right, during the "season", always means 24/7! The immediate community ashore has grocery stores, boat chandleries, liquor stores, numerous restaurants, and in general is a really neat place to visit. The City is a bus/subway ride away.
Alligator River Marina: This one is a bit isolated and there is nothing there but the marina, but at $1/ft it is one of the deals in the area and is a good place to stop if you need a rest. The surrounding water has places to anchor if you are confident in the weather forecast because you are at a convergence of three large bodies of water so you would need to be in the lee of the causeway if the wind were to kick up.
Dowery Creek Marina: A really nice place near to Bellehaven. At $1.50/ft (corrected, thanks to the sharp eyes of Al and Jen) it is a bit pricey but it is a friendly cooperative sort of spot where folks tend to hang around.
Osprey Marina: This was the find of the trip. Although it is off in the middle of nowhere it was an excellent value for dollar and the welcome package containing almost everything including a block of cheese and crackers was the most complete and extensive of any that we came across.
St James Plantation Marina: We found this place by accident when we were forced to stop due to construction work on a bridge blocking the ICW. It is a marina in a gated community and at $1.25/ft for the security and condition of the facilities it is an amazingly good deal. Again, it is a considerable walk to Southport the nearest major community.
Port Royal Marina/ Beaufort Downtown Marina: These two marinas are situated in or near one of our favourite cities in the American South, Beauford, SC. At $1.65/ft they are more that we would normally like to pay but the facilities are excellent and the city is one of the more picturesque that we have visited. The Downtown Marina does have an anchorage field and a dingy dock, but the only fly in the ointment is that the river has quite a tidal current so you have better make sure that your pick is well in or use two anchors.
Fernandina Beach: This is a great town and the city marina used to be a wonderful place to stay. Unfortunately it has gone from municipal management to private interests and we aren't sure if it's still such a good deal. They do have a mooring field and they used to have weekly and monthly rates and maybe they still do. The community is well worth visiting and the small spoil island directly opposite the marina is a great place to look for fossil shark teeth
Titusville Marina: The town of Titusville has definitely seen better days and the local government is doing what they can to rejuvenate the place. The marina is reasonable and it is a great place to watch space shots from Canaveral.
Vero Beach: Otherwise known as Velcro Beach because cruisers have difficulty leaving. The moorings are very reasonable but you can expect to be rafted up to as many as two other boats during your visit. The municipality did provide free bus service to other marts of the community but last winter we had heard that they were talking about putting a price on the trip. Still, the pus stops right at the dingy dock and at the marina office so even if you had to pay for your ride it is still very convenient.
Those are just some of the marinas that we would stop at again if we needed to on our next cruise. Not exhaustive but I am confident if you did stop there you would find them as we described.
Another point that many very experienced cruisers make that we would wholehearted support is that you should be able to make component replacements on your engine yourself otherwise you will be spending a great deal more money hiring mechanics. Granted there will be times that you have no choice, for example if you don't know what the problem is, but with a diesel engine the process is fairly simple - compression, fuel, engine turnover - it pretty much has to run. It will be the other things that you may need specialist advice or assistance for - overheating, electrical problems, vibration, etc. One thing that you can do is make sure that you have replacements components aboard - alternator, fuel pump, injector, injector hose, starter motor, etc. Then at least when the mechanic tells you that the problem is in the fuel pump you can pull out your replacements and not have to wait while he orders you a new one.
In the ten years that we prepared Nelleke for our retirement, we made many trips during our annual leave, but we were always in a rush to get somewhere and then to get back so we could report in to work. That often lead to less of an enjoyable cruise than we would have liked and to us travelling in weather that we would have preferred to stay put. Now that we have retired we should be in a much better position to take our time, but so far, especially in this last cruise we had imposed time constraints on ourselves again. The first was the November 1st deadline to sail from Newport to Bermuda and blog followers will remember what a mistake that turned out to be, and then we were in a rush to get to Fernandina for Christmas in northern Florida. I don't even remember why we decided to do that except perhaps that it would position us better to get over to the Bahamas early in the New Year. The point of this musing is that if we can possibly help it we will be taking our own sweet time from now on, moving when we want to and when we are comfortable with the weather forecast and even our own simple tastes. This may mean that we could be breaking contact with cruising buddies who may want to head our sooner or later than we do. That's not necessarily a bad thing. We both might need some time apart to keep our sanity, and really, we should be confident enough in our own abilities that we don't need to have a buddy boat.
Having said that, let me also state that we have found a buddy boat to be a great asset in the cruising experience, both from the social as well as the security and practical aspects. Our trip across the Gulf Stream was greatly enhanced buy our friends aboard Troubadour as they had made the trip several times, knew the Sea of Abacos very well and acted as both tour guide and hosts during our stay there.
To say that you should be well prepared with seamanship skill set is a statement of the obvious, but one type of training that may not be quite so would be some courses in weather forecasting. I'm not suggesting that everyone should become meteorologists, but everyone can and should take a course from your local power squadron on how to read the weather tea leaves. Besides being very interesting such training will help you interpret the signs on the ground and compare them to what you weather router has told you to expect. With the satellite technology and internet available today there are several very good routing services available to the cruising sailor, plus there are both free and subscription websites from which you can get weather info that will give you a good idea of what to expect on the next leg of your cruise. However skilled a router is they are only really about 90% accurate over the next 24 hours, maybe 75% over the next 46 and it all goes downhill from there. We use Clearpoint a weather subscription service that with our sat phone we can get a new forecast each day tailored specifically for us in our location, but once you are 200 miles to sea you are kinda committed and if the new forecast contradicts the one you received yesterday and tells you that you are about to get pounded, all it really does for you is give you an opportunity to stow loose gear and take a tuck in the sails. Still that's better than nothing. Where the weather course becomes particularly useful can be best described by what happened to us on our return from the aborted trip to Bermuda last fall. I came on deck to relieve our crewman Ron and he informed me that he had seen lightning off to port. What that should have told me was that there was a storm front coming in complete with squalls. Unfortunately, I was so tired that the intel didn't penetrate my thick skull and the result was that Nelleke was caught unprepared in a 50 kt squall. If I had used my brain, we may have avoided the squall front or at the very least taken a deep tuck in the sails. Ah well, fortunately we lived and learned.
The point above brings me to the issue of security. Every offshore cruising course emphasises a watch system and the need for everyone to get enough sleep. On our NARC 2009 we hadn't followed our own rules properly, Ron because he was so ill and I, well I have no real excuse. Suffice to say I won't be not sleeping when it's my turn again. Another point for southbound cruisers, especially those of you that plan to use the ICW either in whole or in part for your cruise, don't accept the words of wisdom from "old salts" that are also cruising the waterway. At least take their advice under advisement but confirm, confirm, confirm. I can't begin to tell of the number of times we had people tell us about how we couldn't get through a certain region of the AICW only to cruise through it with room to spare. They may have not been through that region for a year and in that time the Army Corps of Engineers has been through and dredged it. A few months can make a world of difference. But more interestingly we have seen boats clearly out of the channel hard aground and the next day see a report from them on the Cruiser's Net about how Captain Courageous was in the middle of the channel and had to be towed to deeper water. Some people just can't seem to admit that they screwed up. What is the best way to get current local knowledge? Simple, call TowBoatUS or SeaTow. They are the guys that are getting called to haul people off so they would know what the most recent info is on the stretches of water in their area. Of course that would mean paying a subscription for their services, but the $300 or so for a BoatUS membership with unlimited TowBoatUS pays for itself the first time that you use them. We have called them many times for info but only used them once whereas we have friends that use them 3 or 4 times a transit of the ICW. It is very good value for money.
If you are one of those cruisers that has their VHF located in the cabin I would like to make a case for getting a RAM mic to put up in the cockpit. We have had many friends that have tried to use their handheld VHF in the cockpit, which is great for receiving but can't transmit worth a darn if you are more than 5 miles or so away from them. If you are trying to maintain contact that can be very frustrating for both parties. The alternative is to put the radio up in the cockpit and we have several friends who have done just that but unless you have a really good cover chances are that you will have water damage sooner or later. Even a RAM mic can get water in the microphone and end up distorting the sound until it dries out.
Enough for now. Congratulations if you have managed to plough your way through all that. I'll will save some for the future.
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