Marina or hook/sailing . . . which is cheaper?

[bobconnie]

We are lucky as we are equipted to be as comfortable at anchor, as we would be at a marina! we can and have run our genny for air conditioning in Mexico in the summer mo's and with a freazer and a BBQ ya can have fish or steak, and even watch tv sometimes LOL all at anchor! even with the cost of diesel these days it's cheaper then marinas and a lot more pleasent!! for us at least as we are sorta anti- social! LOL anyway thats or 2 cents

[impi]

We almost never stay at a marina ... mostly because we love being at anchor and don't really care to fit into any one else's set of rules when it can be avoided.
Our boat is comfortable at anchor ... we have plenty of fresh water which is generated by our 12v water maker (18-20ah), hot water and plenty of electricity. We run our genset for VERY short periods when wanting that extra boost for the batteries otherwise enjoy our solar panels which provide in excess of 40 ah here in the BVI's ... we don't run air con as it is breezy here and we just open all the hatches ... aircon is nice if raining and hatches are to be closed!
We watch the sunset go down which is ALWAYS spectacular when on anchor and after supper watch a movie almost every night before looking at emails etc.
We take our dingy ashore regularly and change anchorages regularly unless we find a spot we really just would like to 'hang' for a while!
I get VERY miserable if we have to be at a marina for some reason or other ... it lacks freedom and I would rather be on my farm back home than to stay on my boat in a marina!
Having said that, Ana and I did stay in a marina for about 2 yrs whilst we geared and fitted the boat for our world voyage ... I would rather put money into my boat making it more and more comfortable than to pass it on to some marina management company! Hey bobconnie ... we on the other hand are not anti-social and we take the dingy to other boats at anchor to introduce ourselves ... have made many fantastic friends this way from all walks of life and from all over the world ... its fantastic ...

[bobconnie]

LOL We are only anti social with non sailors in the Marinas! we always greet new folks in any anchorages we are at mostly with a Loaf of Connies fresh bread(unless it's Loaded up with boats then we move LOL) We really like palces with 5 or 6 boats at most !!

[impi]

Originally Posted by bobconnie

LOL We are only anti social with non sailors in the Marinas! we always greet new folks in any anchorages we are at mostly with a Loaf of Connies fresh bread(unless it's Loaded up with boats then we move LOL) We really like palces with 5 or 6 boats at most !!

GREAT ... I will be looking out for you guys ... fresh bread sounds awesome !!!

[Dockhead]

Everyone can do his own math depending on the cost of marinas in his particular location.

When you count up the cost of anchoring or mooring, however, don't forget the indirect costs.

I kept my boat in a marina until spring last year, and she has been on a mid-river mooring (or underway) ever since.

The first indirect cost I found out about was batteries. I quickly killed a set of batteries to the tune of 1000 GBP (but that's only one month in the marina I had just left, so I was philosophical about it). And now I go to a lot of trouble and have incurred various expenses to try to keep the batteries maintained without shore power. I installed a wind generator at quite a lot of expense which does not produce enough power. Solar is probably next.

Then the next indirect cost is getting to your boat. Where do you keep a dinghy, or can you use a water taxi? My mooring is out of the regular range of the Hamble water taxi, so to use the taxi is expensive and takes a long time for him to come. Besides that, out of season he shuts down at 18:00 or even 16:00 and you're stuck if you arrive after hours. I've incurred hotel bills because of missing the taxi.

So now I pay my former marina 600 GBP (about $1000) a year to keep a dinghy there. This solves other problems, too -- I have a place to park, a place to get my mail, and other benefits of being a citizen of a marina. But since I don't want to leave my regular dinghy for weeks at a time in the water, collecting rainwater etc., I bought a second hard rowboat for that purpose (another indirect expense).

Then you have to spend money on diesel fuel and wear and tear on the genset to make electrical power on the mooring. With no shore power, you don't have hot water on demand. You have to make it.

Then the biggest inconvenience of spending a lot of time on the mooring is fresh water. This can be a real problem if your boat is too big to dock single handed, like mine.

Next in line in top inconveniences is getting provisions and getting back and forth to land. It can be a PITA if it's pouring down rain or you're in a hurry to get into the city for meeting, etc. Mostly it's not a PITA -- for me, under most circumstances, the dinghy trip is just a bit more boating. I guess it depends on how you look at it.

When you add it all up, for me at least, the saving is not nearly as great as it seems at first glance, even compared to the extremely expensive marinas here (I was paying about $1600 a month).

But I prefer being on the mooring for one non-financial reason -- to spend a night on the mooring is to be "out there" already. It is totally different from being in the big boat parking lot which is a marina. It is so much more peaceful, and you are really in nature and finally really out of land life. For me this is the biggest plus of not being in a marina.

We have been on our summer cruise for about a month now, and we have had shore power for a grand total of four nights out of about 30. We have been at anchor or on mooring balls or on pontoons without power, mostly. I do not find life without shore power to really be a problem as long as the genset is working properly and you have reasonable battery capacity. At anchor with an anchor light burning and the electronics running all the time, I usually need to charge twice a day. On a mooring ball with electronics shut down and no anchor light, once a day at dinner time is enough even though we use a lot of inverter power for various tasks. If you move every couple of days it's even easier, as even a short period of motoring brings the batts right back up, in our case.

[Amapola]

Unless we are at our home dock, we are at anchor.