I went to the Florida Keys by boat this past weekend for 3 days. We slept on
the boat, and managed to fish only one and half days due to rough sea
conditions.

Fuel burn was 270 gallons...100 gallons each way, and 70 gallons heading to
and from the fishing grounds, and trolling for 8 hours.


Fuel costs were $960 ($3.57/gallon), the slip was $170 for two nights, and
drinks, food, and provisions were under $200. Total=around $1400.

If I had gotten a hotel on Memorial Day weekend for two nights, it would
have cost me $500, and a fishing charter would have been $900 for one day
and $500 for the second day. We would have had to go out to breakfast,
lunch, and dinner rather than bring our own food, which would have added
another $300 to the tab for 3 days. Gas for the car ride would have run
another $100. Total=$2300.

Boating and fishing on a liveaboard is still cheaper than a hotel, dining
out, and hiring a fishing guide. I'm surprised that so many boaters who own
large expensive live-aboards would cite "higher fuel costs" as the reason
for cancelling a planned trip that involved travelling only 120 miles
round-trip. An extra $1/gallon at the pump would have added less than $150
to their trip.





"Chuck Gould" wrote in message
oups.com...
Interesting 4 day, 3 night cruise.

Splendid weather.

Our general destination was about 60 miles from Seattle. We
encountered a "cruise in" sponsored by a large cruising club. I know
several people associated with the group and we were bs-ing about
things in general when one of the organizers mentioned, "We originally
had close to 40 boat scheduled to make the Memorial Day Cruise, but as
the date got closer more and more them dropped out. We wound up with
16 boats instead of 40. Almost everybody who dropped out mentioned
fuel costs as either the main reason or one of the more important
reasons for cancelling."

Interesting.

We stopped at Bainbride Island on the way back to Seattle today,
(Bainbridge is just a few miles from Seattle), and Eagle Harbor was
*jammed* until very late on Monday afternoon. Looks like people are
going boating, but not going as far.

A possible upside may be that the casual, once-in-a-while, jerkaround
boaters might not be out at all this year. The amount of goofball
nonsense on the VHF, bogus Maydays, kids playing with the radio, and
just plain clueless VHF operation seemed to be way, way down. Either
the screwballs have migrated to text messagin one another or there are
fewer of them on the water........