On May 29, 4:31�am, "NOYB" wrote:


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.


A lot of people of moderate means enjoy boating. A lot of folks with
modest boats couldn't justify a $2300 3-day weekend (like your fishing
trip). Unfortunately, it's the modest boats owned by folks of modest
means that often have the most immodest appetites for fuel. At $5 a
fuel dock gallon and perhaps 1nmpg fuel efficiency a 120 mile round
trip cruise is a $600 weekend, plus possible additional expenses for
moorage, restaurant meals etc.

The increased cost of fuel has taken a bite out of a lot of folks who
have no option oother than to commute for a living, many of whom live
paycheck-to-paycheck. While it's easy to wonder what some of these
folks are doing trying to own a boat in the first place, it's a fact
that there are a lot of folks who only marginally afford boating and
when their "have to" fuel expenses go way up they are forced to cut
back on the "want to" items to make up the difference.

The only thing that has changed dramatically from previous years is
the cost of fuel. People are still getting out, but staying closer to
home in my observation.

My boat burned about 15 gallons round-trip, (but it took me the
better part of a day each way)......but my boat wouldn't be suitable
for a lot of folks who need to go fast for the sheer thrill of doing
so or want to pull skiers, etc.

Folks as well off as you are don't need to worry about the cost of
fuel and most won't. :-) The rest of us paupers out here either need
to be lucky enough to own a very fuel efficient boat or face some
tough decisions about how we'll spend our boating dollars.

When we make our long summer cruise up into Canada later this summer
it will be interesting to see if there is a drop off from last year in
the number of US boats in various anchorages and marinas. There were
fewer in 2006 than there were in previous years, so my guess is there
were be fewer in 2007 than in 2006 as



"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........- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -