Make Money While Cruising - List

[sailorboy1]

win the lottery

[fwalschots]

Can't believe no-one has mentioned people smuggling. They pay you big money and they also work the passage...

[Rhapsody-NS27]

Originally Posted by Therapy

What I always wanted to do but I wore glasses and was too tall.

A disability.

I should be compensated for that.

I wanted to do that in the military and for the same reasons I was denied. I got a good job anyway and when I retire, I'm doing something different.

[Therapy]

Originally Posted by Dan_78

I wanted to do that in the military and for the same reasons I was denied. I got a good job anyway and when I retire, I'm doing something different.

Heh.

I didn't join the military out of high school because they would not guarantee I could fly a helicoptor. This during Vietnam.

Now you know how dumb I am.

[eliems]

As long as I can connect with the internet I can run my business: TriCityEvents.Com; The Coquitlam, Port Moody and Port Coquitlam Community Resource Site. . (Basically an on-line Community Yellow Pages connected to a resource site where the businesses pay us to be in the directory).

This idea is entirely replicable!

[Zydeco]

Originally Posted by eliems

As long as I can connect with the internet I can run my business: TriCityEvents.Com; The Coquitlam, Port Moody and Port Coquitlam Community Resource Site. . (Basically an on-line Community Yellow Pages connected to a resource site where the businesses pay us to be in the directory).

This idea is entirely replicable!

Nice directories! The internet seems to be up to its eyeballs in directories. How do you convince businesses that they are getting value by being listed in your directory? Especially the first few businesses to sigh up.

[eliems]

1: Focus on the non-profit community and be prepared to post all of their events, fund-raising etc.
2: Bring on the city backing (links, signs etc), as they help you to help the non-profit community.
3: Take pictures of these signs and send them to the businesses offering ads at a very cheap rate ($10/month). When they see the city is behind it they come on. After a few years go to $150 per year and offer Banners for $600.
4: Put site cards in every business and watch the hits grow! Put them in the grocery stores in return for free ads so you reach the community.

We have now been growing for 12 years and touched a million hits a year from our community of 160,000 people.

We also enjoy a renewal rate of 90 percent as the businesses are doing very well from these ads. We are able to provide stats for their ads each year and they see results as people see our cards and comment that is how they found their business.

You need to put three years into building and then you can go sailing, operating the site from your boat.

[Utilitary]

What about Dive Instructor? I'm currently a Divemaster and have thought about making the investment if it would finance longterm sailing expeditions. What do ya'll think? Any opportunities for diver to make the mullah?

[osirissail]

Originally Posted by Utilitary

What about Dive Instructor? I'm currently a Divemaster and have thought about making the investment if it would finance longterm sailing expeditions. What do ya'll think? Any opportunities for diver to make the mullah?

No problem if you stay inside your own country's borders/territories. You may be up against some stiff competition from lots of other diving instructors/masters in any given "good" diving location. They seem to be a "dime a dozen" in places like the Florida, Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico. So don't expect to make very much money.

Doing it outside your country of citizenship gets into all the same problems that have been listed previously in this thread.

If you are willing to stop cruising and live in a particular foreign country for a fairly long period of time that is a different matter. Almost all the dive operations I have met in the little Caribbean countries are "ex-pats" who were cruisers and then decided to "stay for awhile longer" and started a diving operation. Of course, they went through the hoops and hurdles to get licensed, if necessary, long term visas and get work permits.

[GaryMayo]

99% of the tattoos most tattoo artists do is criminal. People are dumb asking to get what they get, and if you go to a dumb artist, you get what you are looking for, a dumb tattoo.

If I sold lawn fertilizer, I would not pile it five deep all over your family and cover your children. In any industry, you should have standards and practices in place that protect the consumer. In the tattoo trade, anything goes. It is foolish, it is wrong, and society pays the ultimate price for a small percentage of people being dumb.

I have zero tattoos. My wife has zero tattoos. I have no piercings, and she only has simple earlobes pierced. If you got a prescription filled, would you go to someone addicted to prescription drugs? Would you get a prescription filled out by a pharmacist out of control in his personal life?

Put me in charge of the world, and many things would change.

Originally Posted by tropicalescape

Its not only a bad idea on a boat its a bad idea overall ...think about the "good ' folks that get one on their arms or neck or anywhere you can see it ...the powers that be dont need to know your name or the color of your eyes ..all they need to know is : well I dont remember much sir but, I did see that he had MOM on his right arm and a swastika on his neck..case solved...oh yea he and she had a crappy jig in their nose and I think they had one of those ball bearings in their tongue too..very unmistakeable sir ...its like they were advertising how dumb they were...DVC

[David_Old_Jersey]

Originally Posted by Utilitary

What about Dive Instructor? I'm currently a Divemaster and have thought about making the investment if it would finance longterm sailing expeditions. What do ya'll think? Any opportunities for diver to make the mullah?

Been a long time since I did any diving - but a (PADI) Divemaster was mainly based on selling a dream of doing what you are hoping for (sitting somewhere warm and having fun). And they churned 'em out by the boatload - so were also cheap labour (a win win for PADI ), as always someone willing to work for little more than beer money.....turnover high though, so opportunities around......if not done so already, I would get some hands on experiance of the job (and learn the business) on someone else's dime .

But (IMO) always room for one more good business - as always plenty of bad ones around! The trick is of course being a good business.

If you are intending to offer diving from onboard a vessel then you are moving more into the hospitality sector than simply the diving side - and being stuck with punters 24/7 is not for everyone. I would also say you need a hostess, a partner is ideal as don't need to pay 'em by the hour . Something that looks good in a bikini won't go amiss either .

FWIW the best diving trip I did was in the Philipinnes (forget where ), it was somewhere small, with a modern looking dive shop amongst lots of local looking buildings and no highrise condos........and an Expat Divemaster.

The operation was pretty much a one man band. Diving was nice (but nothing special) - fun going out on a small (local style) skiff (driven by a local), but what really made the trip stick in my mind was not only that the Divemaster was a nice bloke, who made us feel more than a paycheck - without going OTT......but that at the end of the Dive it was suggested that we all go for a BBQ and some beer on a nearby beach ........the "sell" was that the Divemaster and g/f (local ) were going anyway - whether that true or not was a nice touch. (We chipped in a few extra bucks - no one was getting rich from the deal, but they probably ate and drank for free).

Of course we never went back - punters .

I just pass on the story because lots of ways to skin a cat.

[hellosailor]

"What about Dive Instructor?"
Utilitary, I've seen a lot of people--and shops--come and go in the dive business. The only way you're going to make a living at it, is by establishing a shop (significant investment) in an underserved resort area where there's regular trade to use your rentals or tours. And there's not many of those, so you'll probably be poaching someone else's customers, and not making much money unless you've got some real flair for getting business--and keeping it.
Or signing up as the resort instructor at some destination hotel, where they won't want folks just passing through, they'll want long term staff.
A lot of folks get into the dive business because it is a dream job, and then find out it doesn't pay, spoiling the dream. Good luck if you can make it work, working at what you love to do would be a very good thing.

[Celestialsailor]

Originally Posted by David_Old_Jersey

Could set up an Internet Forum........on sailing.

...Oh stop clowning around!!!

[Celestialsailor]

I don't think anyone has mentioned it yet but how about boat bottom cleaning. A simple 12volt air compressor with a modest size battery in a dinghy and a hooka god to 15 ft. would work. In warmer waters, I think you would be busy.

[eliems]

There must be a lot of "un-official" chartering going on? Just park your Leopard somewhere obvious, (like off a busy beach) and wait for the tourists to ask for a day-sail?