“Are you independently wealthy or something?”

Little has been said or written about the ways a man may blast himself free.  Why?  I don’t know, unless the answer lies in our diseased values.  A man seldom hesitates to describe his work; he gladly divulges the privacies of alleged sexual conquests.  But ask him how much he has in the bank and he recoils into a shocked and stubborn silence.

“I’ve always wanted to sail to the South Seas, but I can’t afford it.”  What these men can’t afford is not to go.  They are enmeshed in the cancerous discipline of “security.”  And in the worship of security we fling our lives beneath the wheels of routine — and before we know it our lives are gone.” 

from “Wanderer” by Sterling Hayden

That’s what a stranger asked us the other day when we met her out and about walking Riley and we got talking about our travels and life aboard. The answer: a resounding “no”. I’ve never owned a stock or a business.  We didn’t win the lottery or have a trust come due.  We had a house foreclosed on.  It’s a fair question though.

The subject of how much it costs to live a life afloat is always a popular one in online forums, or Facebook pages dedicated to cruising. A lot of people dream about this kind of lifestyle and want to know what it costs. The answer? Well, like everything involving sailboats, “it depends”. We’ve met people out cruising on boats that cost several hundred thousands of dollars who stay in marinas often, to a couple of guys going from NC to the Keys aboard a 22′ MacGregor that cost around a thousand dollars and living on a shoestring. I guess the best way to figure out how much it costs is to figure out what you are willing to accept in terms of creature comforts, how much work you want to do, and whether or not you want to go now or go later. I can only say with some certainty how much it costs us.

Some bloggers in the sailing/cruising community are really good about tracking every cent and organizing spreadsheets so you can see what they are spending. I am not one of those. I work in a more general sense when it comes to money, so here are some of those figures.

Wanderer outfitted for cruising cost less than the base model of a new Ford F150.  We paid cash for the boat and everything on her.  We could have waited and saved longer and gotten a bigger, more expensive boat, but why?  For our plan to go now, at this stage of our lives, she fits the bill.  She was the nicest, best kept, cruising boat in our size and price range that was closest to home.  By working on her ourselves including upgrades like our arch, solar panel, propane stove to replacing our transmission a few days into our cruise we saved a ton of money.  Plus, we got to know our boat pretty intimately.  I would suggest anyone who wants to go cruising, no matter how much boat you can afford or afford to have people work on it, do some of the boat work yourself.  Nothing on a boat is very complicated really, everything is either a separate or interconnected system.  With a few hours of thought and poking and prodding you can figure it out.  And in those few hours you save yourself a few hundred dollars.

Monthly our expenses have varied depending on where we are.  Our first month in the Bahamas we were well provisioned and in the more remote Berry Islands with fewer shore based temptations like happy hours.  So accordingly our expenses were very low.  As our time in the Bahamas continued and we cruised the more settled Abacos and had to restock provisions we spent a bit more.  Back in the US it has cost more because we had to motor the majority of the ICW vs. getting to sail. Throughout our cruise we ended up spending more on diesel than expected.  The great irony of living on a sailboat is that you don’t get to sail much…but that’s a post for another time.

So, getting back on track, before we left we figured our monthly costs would total about $1500, after six months turns out our average is around $1600.  That includes everything in our lives from the phone bill to boat parts to dining out.  One of the important lessons we have learned on this first foray into cruising and living aboard is what type of cruisers we want to be.  When I first started reading about this sailing life I, like many others, were inspired by Lin & Larry Pardey.  For those who don’t know of them, they are about as famous as you can get in the sailing world having written, filmed, and otherwise documented their life afloat for the past thirty or more years.  They have circumnavigated the world a few times, all on small (26′ – 30′) wooden, engine-less boats that they built themselves.  They live and promote a very simple kind of cruising, their mantra being “go small, go now”.  Well, I took a lot of that to heart over the years, but have also realized that their lifestyle doesn’t exactly fit ours.  We have taken their idea of simplicity and a relatively small boat, but we use our engine and enjoy staying at a marina and eating meals ashore every now and then.  Being at a marina adds a lot of expense to cruising, but it makes life a lot simpler with an active dog, when working ashore, and it’s really nice to have a regular shower with hot water.  Going forward we know we like to indulge in more creature comforts than what we perhaps envisioned when this whole crazy journey began.  And that’s ok.  There are people out there who live on a few hundred dollars and eat rice and read books on board all day, that’s ok too, but it’s not us.

Now we’ve stopped to recoup some of the money we’ve spent.  This may become a cycle for us: cruise a few months, work a few months.  Though we love traveling, both Trisha & I have strong nesting tendencies as well.  Maybe we have found a way for it to work together.

If you are contemplating life afloat, or any kind of semi-nomadic gypsy lifestyle be it backpacking or RV’ing, here’s some unsolicited advice:

1) Get as debt free as you can*.  Pay cash for everything.

2) Try out the lifestyle before you jump into it.  For sailing it could be spending some time chartering a boat, taking a liveaboard sailing class, or crewing on a boat delivery.

3) Simplify your life now so you are happy with a simple boat.  Complicated boats with lots of systems have more things break, ergo you spend more time fixing them and less time traveling.  Before living aboard our 32′ Wanderer we lived in a 400 sq. ft. apartment (downsize from a 1500 sq. ft. house) with one plug-in electric burner.  Moving aboard and having a 3 burner propane range feels luxurious!

4) If you are young, young-ish, or old and contemplating having an adventure, GO.  If you are worried about the money realize that you can always make more.  You don’t get time or health back.

5) Live your life for you**.  If you have a strong desire to live on a sailboat, or save gorillas, or whatever, focus your life on that.  When your passions and life line up you will be much happier.  Damn what others think.

*We still hold some student loans as debt, but the payments are only a few hundred a month which we budgeted for.

**Within reason.  Take care of your loved ones and don’t be an asshole just because you are living for you.

Priceless