On Mon, 1 Nov 2010 23:38:20 -0700 (PDT), Bob
wrote:

Spending money and wasting time in port fixing things is not cruising.
that saying about fixing things in distant ports is a joke

Unfortunately there is a lot of truth to it. If you are
living/cruising on a boat every day, far from your home base, things
do need maintenance from time to time. Local help is frequently
unavailable, incompetent or dishonest. Parts are frequently
unavailable. Shipping things in from out of country is expensive and
takes much longer than you'd like. Anything you can fix yourself
because you've had the foresight to bring the right tools and repair
parts is all to the good.