Quote:
Originally Posted by goprisko
Again, I'd like to bring the discussion back to topic.
To Atoll: Glenn finished his boat on time, and went cruising. His organization was key to successful completion.
To Mark: I spent 15 years studying the coral reefs of the world, in doing so, I traveled as necessary to passes patch reefs and other interesting spots in my 12 modified whitehall rowing dink. Yes, I used the 2HP Honda for the longer runs, BUT mostly I moved the big boat to nearby and jumped off directly onto the area of interest. Since I was photographing my sites, and usually came complete with two cameras and strobes to match, I had a lot of gear to lug. Since I was singlehanding, I had to do it all alone. The dink sufficed just fine.
Regarding your comment about using your dink to go 10 miles to check out the next cove and seasteading. A micro-budget cruiser is not staking a claim to a plot of seabed. His boat must be agile, easily handled, and sufficiently weatherly to go anywhere he wants to go. Which means he will up anchor and explore that cove in the ship, towing the dink behind. He will have a boat of modest draft, < 4ft, that permits him exploring the most intimate gunkholes. He doesn't have to anchor close, because the sail on his dink carries him effortlessly to and fro. He doesn't have to worry about spark plugs, two cycle oil, gasoline, heavy chain to deter theft, repairing holed tubes, and other expenses. With the money saved, he enjoys a beer under a palm tree, while the RIB man scours for parts.
I have seen a lot of dinks in my 20 years traveling the world, and all the RIBs have large motors on them, and spend a lot of time zooming everywhere. That is fine, but it is not cheap.
This thread is about FRUGALITY. FRUGAL IS CHEAP. FRUGAL means using a $25/ yr dink instead of a $750/yr dink. BECAUSE the frugal guy wants to use the $725/yr on something else.
If this doesn't make sense to you, perhaps you might hang out at the "Cruising on $2000/month" thread, where such folks live rather than on this "Micro-budget Cruising" thread.
INDY |
Once again I am baffled by your anger and your comments. I differed with your numbers in a respectful tone, but you seem to be offended by what I said... Strange?
My boat is a
Searunner tri, it is agile,
sails well to windward, and only draws about 3' with the board up. We check out other areas on an hourly basis sometimes. NO ONE moves their cruising boat every few hours.
I never said that You can't use a hard dink for
diving. I did it for many years. I just said that RIBS are better dive
boats. THEY ARE! This is also the opinion of 95% of the people who dive daily, and have used both types for years.
In the 15 years I spent actively cruising, spread out over 40 years, I only had a
dinghy outboard completely "not run" on one occasion. I rowed back to the boat, rebuilt the carbarator, and never had it happen again. Sure they break on rare occasion, that's when I take my additional time (saved from not rowing), and fix it. You could not anchor in the places that we have, because you would take all day trying to make it to shore. Hard dinghies DO have a few disadvantages... This is not an opinion, it's a fact. RIBs also have disadvantages. FACT!
I never said that most folks had small RIBS with a small motors. "MOST FOLKS" are the much more funded 85% of cruisers. I said: "most folks on a budget"... And most of that 15% of cruisers, DO use smaller RIBs and smaller motors, (if they choose to use one at all).
Hard dinks do have advantages and disadvantages, just like RIBs. I was constantly repairing my hard dink, at least as often as my
RIB. In places I have cruised, the risk of theft is just as high. In particular, the oars! In many areas, they will disappear the first time that you don't lock them, which requires a hole in the blade for the cable... Along with
epoxy coating the holes, keeping
paint on them, etc.
I never said that a RIB was as cheap as a hard
dinghy, just that the difference in cost was far less than you were implying. You were comparing your
experience with a hard dink to that of the 85% of more funded cruisers with large
boats, large RIBs, and large OB motors. Apples to oranges...
My boats, over the decades, were a 23'
Wharram, in my 20s, and a Seaclipper 28' tri in my 30s, and now in my 50s & married, we have a
Searunner 34. All very frugal lifestyles.
I said in my first post that when I figured in boat
maintenance (averaged over 15 years),
Taxes when we owed them, and our only landside expense, of a 10 X 20'
storage unit, we live on about $1,000 a month. This was for TWO people, so is = to $500 / month, per person. Pretty cheap, FRUGAL living, indeed!
I was
single until the age of 35, and back then my living expenses were a third of that. On my first boat, I didn't USE a dinghy, I had a VERY long pair of freediving fins, lived on $100 / month, and worked "as I went" on both boats!
I didn't consider this a competition to see who can live the cheapest, you obviously do. YOU WIN!!! On our last time out for years, as always, it was on our savings, with "0"
income. When the kitty got down to about $500, we sailed in three legs, and a total of 12 sea days, from Trinidad to the
Beaufort NC inlet.
While waiting for a "weather window" in
Culebra, we took the
ferry to PR, rented a car, and drove across the country to see the world's largest
radio telescope at Arriciebo. (sp?) No, This is not in keeping with living as cheaply as possible, ( not MY goal), it was in keeping with MY philosophy of: never go into debt, live within your means, and then have as much fun, and see as many inland sights as your
budget will allow. On our $1,000 / month,(for both of us), we were just barely able to do this.
Being poor and/or living cheap, is no more something to brag about, than "living large" is for the big boat guys.
Enjoying yourself, while "Living within your means", and "treading lightly on the planet"... Now THAT'S a worthy goal.
I was not claiming to be the "cheap living champ". There is more to life than that, and it was not my goal. We have however, been among the least funded 1% of cruisers, had "0"
income, lived on about $1,000 / mo, and managed to see a lot of the countries we visited, not just the coast.
I thought this input was useful to the conversation as well...
Mark
Re: Cruising on $500 per Month . . .
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