The nitty gritty, Making money while you're cruising The South Pacific

[rkarakai21]

I'd like to start a discussion where people can share their experiences of funding the cruising kitty while abroad, and or saving for the initial leap into the voyage.

I'd Like to exclude the whole youtube sensation, go-fund me approach from this discussion as my partner and I have discussed this and neither of us feel that this would be the best approach for us.

I should share a little background on our side and elaborate briefly on our plans.

My partner is a full time highschool teacher and has one of her Bachelors in Education, which she got specifically so that her teaching credentials would be recognized abroad with cruising in mind.

We are both experienced sailors in different ways; she taught dingy sailing for most of her adolescence and then moved on to become heavily involved in the keelboat racing scene around the Vancouver Island Area.

I started off as a trainee in traditional sail training ships when I was 22, am 31 now and have been working in Canada, the US, France, etc on a number of traditional square rigged ships as crew-boatswain- and eventually chief mate etc since then and have done a couple Atlantic crossings and sailed coastal in Europe, the Med, West Coast US, Great Lakes, etc... Currently working for a local charter boat company in my homeport of Victoria BC.

We have bought a Tom Gilmer designed Roughwater 33 and absolutely love the boat, and we are planning on a 5 year timeframe for fitting her out properly for offshore, and doing a number of coastal cruises around BC to get used to the boat and overnight passages with eachother, before heading off to the Pacific Milk run and I hope slowly around the world. We are both fluent in English, French and her in spanish as she teaches it.

My question is wide ranging, so lets break it down

1. For those who have sailed the South Pacific route how difficult is it to pick up odd boatyard jobs and or maintenance jobs on other peoples boats? I have extensive wooden boat maintenance experience, with re-finishing, rigging, hardware installation etc, mostly transferable skills to fiberglass yachts with some re-jigging.

2. How stingey are most of the south pacific nations about work visas and official permits etc... I realize we will need certain visas to enter certain countries but are they extremely strict about people picking up piece work?

3. What did you guys do to keep your cruise afloat?

4. Keeping mostly out of marinas and anchoring out, cooking yourself and trying to keep things economical how much were you able to live on per month in the South Pacific?

My partner is planning on doing some English teaching with her qualifications wherever she can while I'm doing boat work.

Yes I have read and re-read the Cost Conscious Cruiser, and other books by the Pardeys, but it's hard to get a real world bead on things reading books by extremely exceptional people, I mean, lets be honest, how many people build their own wood Lyall Hess Cutter and sail around the world engineless on it..

Cheers

Ryan