== 2 of 2 ==
Date: Tues, Jun 1 2010 6:02 am
From: slide
Hand held depth finder? I had no idea such a thing existed, but I can
see its use for exploring an anchorage by dink.
$.50 / US gal for water? How much do you think you are spending per year
doing this cruising stuff? I mean all running expenses and repairs. I
don't mean payments on the boat itself if if's financed. Seems to me
that every post I read of yours, there is some huge running expense
documented.
The handhelds are very common among cruisers. Tells temp and depth, and, to
boot, has a fishfinder function as well. About a boat decibuck. It's from
Hawkeye, a "DIGITAL SONAR handheld sonar Px" - and, as is my wont, I'll give
them high marks for customer service. My first unit, well out of warranty,
had a problem. Sent it back, and they sent me another, which works
perfectly.
We know, exactly, how much we're spending, and, on what, as we keep a
spreadsheet of all of our expenses by category. We only have two complete
years at this point, but they're much more detailed than Bumfuzzle's, for
example.
To date, in our entire time out, we paid $5 to fill in Annapolis (our sole
experience of being charged for water in the US), $5.50 in the Sampson Cay
example, and two examples of $10 and $20 in Marsh Harbour, at $.20/gallon.
So far, in 3 years plus, that comes to just over half a boat decibuck in
more than 3 years. Not so bad. We plan our water according to advantage; we
carry a lot of it, so we have some flexibility in where and when we fill.
We thought long and hard about a watermaker, but the acquisition cost alone,
never mind the running costs, either in electricity or consumables, would
buy us more water, even at $.50/gal than we could foresee in our lifetimes.
That said, our buddy boat has one, which came with the boat, and love it,
running it whenever they're motoring. They've offered us emergency, should
we actually run out somewhere in the boonies when we're together, supply, so
we're not worried.on that count.
The boat's clear, courtesy of our wreck, and we're self-insured. Your
vision of "huge running expense" is all in the eyes of the beholder. Our
running expenses - make that total expenditures, including shoretime which
is much more costly than living aboard - for the last three years combined
wouldn't fill the fuel tanks on some of the yachts we've been near, for
example, but, conversely, a single month's total expenditures would likely
exceed a Wilbur/Neal-type boat's annual costs, as they have an outboard, no
refrigeration or other consumables storage overhead, and the entire boat
could be bought for the price of a new set of sails or standing rigging
(with new furler) on ours.
It's all in the perspective :{))
Right now, I'm in the middle of a squall, with very limited WiFi, so this
responses is clipped from the daily digest I receive, so it can wait to go
out, rather than my waiting for the original to show up in the thread on my
news reader. You may well not see it until well after the June 2 9AM
composition :{))
L8R
Skip
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