There is No Such Thing As a Free Lunch

Just 4 short months ago when I was working for an engineering firm, I would attend “lunch and learns” one or two times a week. A company sales rep would bring in lunch and present their products to us engineers. Engineers are like college students and love “free” food, so we’d come out by the dozens to attend these “lunch and learns”. But the lunch wasn’t free. In exchange for lunch, we gave up an hour of our day to learn about the company’s products and potentially specify them on the projects we were working on.

We are very fortunate that we get to travel to exotic and beautiful places, but don’t let our gorgeous pictures on facebook fool you…cruising is hard work. It’s actually more difficult than either of us had imagined. But cruising is like everything else in life, you can’t get something for nothing. Here are some of the less glamorous aspects of our new lifestyle.

1) Water Conservation

Our water tanks hold 100 gallons and we have an additional 20 gallons in jerry cans. While we really wanted to install a watermaker, we couldn’t swallow the $5,500 price tag. If we do a good job of monitoring our water usage, this amount will last us about 10 days. This means rinsing dishes quickly with low pressure water, very quick showers, washing the deck with a bucket of water instead of a hose, and never leaving the water running.

2) Showering

Showers on the boat are not particularly pleasant. Our hot water heater has two heat sources. One is AC electric power and the other is heat from running our engine. We don’t have the battery capacity to run AC power to the hot water heater, so I try to only shower on days when we’ve turned on the engine. The downside is that the water is lava hot and our shower temperature control is touchy. Finding a temperature between lava hot and freezing is a skill that I’m still developing. Because water conservation is important, we can’t leave the water running. So, we have to take navy showers. Get wet, shut off the water, lather up, rinse, repeat. Even though I only used our bathtub 3 times in the 2.5 years we lived in our Denver home, I would have killed for a soak in a hot bath when my legs were covered in bug bites.

3) Manual Toilet

Without going into too much detail here, modern day toilets are amazing inventions that add comfort to our lives. But most heads (boat toilets) have manual pumps. This can be rather unpleasant. Privacy on the boat is nonexistent, so if you weren’t already aware of your partner’s bathroom habits, you will be after a week on a boat. We thought it was ridiculous that some boats our size have two heads on board. Now we sometimes wish we had a second.

We also have to avoid flushing any toilet paper. It will plug our waste system and who wants the job of unplugging it. We have a small trash can with a lid in the bathroom to dispose of toilet paper. It’s really not as gross as it sounds, but it’s less convenient.

4) Dog Hair, Dog Hair, and More Dog Hair

Dog hair is everywhere. I’m sure we had just as much dog hair in our Denver home, but it was much much bigger. The dog hair would just gather in the corners and vacuuming/sweeping once a month kept it out of sight. Now that the four of us live in a much smaller space, there is dog hair everywhere despite constant vacuuming. We have to vacuum and/or sweep every few days just to stay on top of it.

5) The Motion of the Ocean

We haven’t seen any major storms while at anchor yet, but we have certainly had some rocky nights. In Shroud Cay we couldn’t even cook dinner, because of the waves. It’s really impossible to do anything other than watch movies to pass the time.

6) Dinghy Rides

If the boat is our house, then the dinghy is our car. It is the vehicle we take to shore. In flat clam waters, it’s a lovely ride. But typically there’s wind and where there’s wind, there are waves and when there are waves, we get soaked. Despite wearing raincoats, we rarely arrive at our destinations dry. Getting a face full of salt water each time we walk the dogs gets rather frustrating. We are on the hunt for a larger dinghy which should help some.

7) Laundry

Clothes and sheets eventually get dirty and we have to do laundry. This can be a pain and can be quite costly. If you stay on top of it, you can wash your clothes the good old fashion way, in a bucket and then hang them out to dry. If you let it build up, then you probably need a laundry facility. These aren’t abundant in the islands and they can be quite pricey. Not to mention, the pain of hauling the laundry into the dinghy and then carrying it to the laundromat. Laundry in the Bahamas costs anywhere from $7 to $13 a load.

8) Boat Maintenance

This is something that we significantly under estimated prior to starting this adventure. For two straight months, we spent all day, every day working on the boat at the Regatta Pointe Marina. The UPS delivery man knew my name as he delivered new boat parts to us each day. We were working harder now that we were unemployed. But our hard work paid off and Kairos runs and looks so much better. But boat projects didn’t end at the marina. We are still dwindling down and adding to our to-do list. In the near future, we need to replace a fuel line, replace the mast boot, caulk deck fittings, clean the bottom, troubleshoot the starting batteries, troubleshoot the generator, and oil the downstairs wood. The marine environment is very harsh on boats and the work never stops.

9) Walking the Dogs

There are no doggy doors on the boat and doggy boat potty training isn’t going well. The pee pad has seen more nap time than potty time. So for now, we are talking the pups to shore twice a day—they need the exercise anyway. But walking the dogs isn’t as easy as it used to be. Now we have to put their harnesses on, then I hand them down to Rob in the dinghy. We then dinghy to shore and when there’s rough seas that means we arrive wet and cold. After they do their business it’s another dinghy ride to the boat, where we have to rinse off the salt and sand before the dogs are allowed below deck. Life on the boat is certainly more difficult with these two free loaders, but we couldn’t imagine not sharing this adventure with them.

10) Going to the Store

Things are not as easy to get as they used to be. We provisioned before we left Florida and stocked up on canned foods, toiletries, paper products, spare parts, beer, wine, medical supplies, etc., etc. But it’s impossible to predict everything you will need while on the hook. Baxter developed a yeast infection in his ear. Back home in Denver, we would simply WALK over to our vet and pick up some cream to treat it. It’s not that simple here. There is one veterinarian clinic in the Exumas (Georgetown) and the vet only visits the island once a month…and we just missed him. Fortunately, I was able to convince them that it is truly a yeast infection and they are going to sell us the ointment without a vet appointment. However, we are still a couple of days away from Georgetown. For Baxter’s sake, we are trying to get there as soon as we can. But until then, he’s going to continue to suffer through me spraying vinegar into his ear.

The same is true for everything. The fuel hose we need for our engine would have costed us $29 in Palmetto and we would have received it the next day. Now, it will be at least a week before we receive the part. We are paying $53 for the part, $35 for shipping, and a $10 fee to pick up the package at the Exumas Market. That $29 part is going to costs us $98 in the Exumas.

The grocery stores in the Exumas are few and far between and the selection is very poor. We aren’t eating steak dinners. Chicken breast is even hard to come by. Our eyes light up with excitement when we find a frozen tube of ground turkey. Yes, I now get excited over tubed meat.

I really underestimated the convenience of having everything we could want at our fingertips in The States. We were just a quick and DRY car ride away from anything we could possibly need. That is now no longer the case.

11) Energy Conservation

It’s starting to get hot and it’s going to get a lot hotter. Our boat doesn’t have air condition and even if it did, we wouldn’t have the battery capacity to run it. Just like water, we have to conserve energy. We use only a few lights at night, we vacuum when the sun is high in the sky and our solar panels are making power, and we check our battery voltage before we start a movie at night. Adding the solar panels has helped us tremendously, but we still have to monitor our electrical usage. Otherwise we’d be constantly running the generator or engine to keep the batteries charged.

12) Stiff Necks

Boat accommodations are small and are not as luxurious as our queen size pillow top mattress back in Denver. It’s more like sleeping on a futon inside a crawlspace. Needless to say, we often wake up with stiff necks or numb limbs.

13) No Trash-man

We dispose of any food remnants by tossing them overboard, but we still accumulate trash (mostly in the form of beer cans). It’s not always easy to find a place to discard our trash and many of the places in the islands charge for it. We paid $6.50 for one bag of trash disposal in Staniel Cay. We try our best to reduce the amount of trash we generate by using dish towels instead of paper towels and using Nalgenes instead of plastic water bottles.

So yes, we get to explore these gorgeous islands, but cruising comes at a cost. Had I known it was going to be this difficult, would I have still committed to this adventure at sea?? Absolutely.