Reflection of a skipper
18 December 2013
Tim
So it's about time I made a contribution to this weighty tome.
Nancy and I have now owned a boat for 25 years and have been full time cruising for 19 months. Finally we are living the dream that was germinated on a Greek island in 1986, (but that's another story). So is this life all it's cracked up to be? Well I guess the answer to that depends on what you left behind, I don't believe either of us have every looked back, although we always had a good life back in England. We do look back with a lot of happiness at everything that has happened since 2nd May 2012 when we cast off from our boatyard that had been home since 1987.
Everyone dreams of blue Caribbean skies and warm seas, we've got that in abundance now; however I miss the early months in Europe and the constant feeling of excitement and anticipation that we had then, every day we were learning something new, we still learn but not as much as in those early days. At the time we decide to push on west into the Pacific that healthy fear of the unknown will hopefully return.
When we set off we were paranoid about every cent that we spent. To be honest we should still be like that but it doesn't dominate our lives any more, (maybe that's why the bank account is heading south!). Eventually you manage your lifestyle to suit the money you have and if anyone asks me how much it costs to do this I tell them that its $1000 a month as long as you have a good boat that you can maintain yourself. Interestingly only a small part of that $1000 is for day to day living, the bulk of it is the irregular big ticket items like insurance, flights home, major repairs, new outboard etc. It's worth adding that we almost never use marinas or restaurants, I am lucky, not everyone has Nancy on board!
It's amazing how quickly your sailing confidence goes up in this life, not to mention your boat handling skills. On numerous occasions we have been in winds of over 30 knots and seas over 3m, they're still uncomfortable but they don't trouble us anymore. Having said that we try to be very conservative with the boat as we can't afford expensive breakages. Last week we had to beat into a gale and big seas for 24 hours, it was only after doing this I realised that the air vents leak unacceptably and the anchor locker doesn't drain fast enough, (every other wave broke over the boat). Amazing that you have a boat 15 years before you discover that. That one trip potentially has cost us $1000 as I now have replace the vents with ones that are dry and also the engine control panel was submerged in salt water and what is left working probably won't continue working for much longer. The moral of the story is in bad conditions if you don't have to go, don't.
The Caribbean ticks a lot of boxes for cruising sailors. The weather is predictable, the seas always around 30C and the air temp is always around 27-30C. Everyone's got their hands out for your dollars here but you can manage that with a bit of local knowledge. We don't use as much diesel as I thought we would as there is plenty of wind here, when we want diesel it's worth a trip to Trinidad and Tobago where it's 15p sterling a litre. One fill lasts me several months.
Larus has proved herself a worthy boat for what we're doing. She is admired wherever we go and is dependable when the weather deteriorates at sea. Nothings perfect and we really need more shade in the way of some kind of bimini over the cockpit, we'll get that eventually but it needs a lot of thought and planning even before you choose someone to make it. If I was to start out with a blank sheet and a blank cheque then I would have a boat of the same genre as Larus but with ability to carry a small rigid inflatable dinghy. We get by fine with our dinghy but a RIB would improve life as the dinghy is such a huge part of what we do. Because we have a generator and watermaker we think they're indispensable. I'm curious as to what we would think about those two things if we didn't have them.
Now we're working we're really becoming experts on all the islands in the Eastern Caribbean as we run the charter yachts through a lot of them. We do have our favourites but I think it's as much about familiarity as anything else. We are always drawn towards Antigua but maybe that's because it was the first island we stopped at after our transatlantic crossing. Incredibly we still haven't stopped in St Lucia even though we've passed it many times. I think now we've done as many miles in the Eastern Caribbean as we did getting here in the first place.
People often ask us, (and every other full time cruiser), 'what do you do all day?' To be honest most days we are busy, but not in the same frantic way that full time working back home was, (we don't have a garden to keep, our garden looks after itself). I probably spend up to half of every day on boat projects; time spent on checking and preventative maintenance pays handsome dividends and I have an ever evolving check list of things that need doing to a schedule. I've never read so many novels as since we left, it's a joy to have the time to do this. Occasionally we'll watch a DVD on the laptop in the evenings, cruisers readily trade movies with each other.
Working is not what we set out to do but it's worked out to be a positive step. The work, although brutally hard, is fun and rewarding. We have only met good people so far, both guests and colleagues and we've sailed in a lot of places that we might otherwise have not gone to. Part time working is ideal for us but I wouldn't want to do it full time.
We miss friends and family back home but have new friends and 'family' on the oceans now. As I write this the class of 2013 are arriving in the islands after their transatlantic crossings, that was us a year ago; some of the class of 2012 have gone back to UK, others have pushed onto Panama and the Pacific but a lot are doing what we're doing and have chosen to stay in the Caribbean for a few years.
We are delighted and flattered to have so many followers of this blog, both known to us and strangers. We wish you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year
Tim