Summary of expenses in the Caribbean

We are management consultants, don't judge us! We keep spreadsheets and are proud of it. 

We can tell you exactly how much we spent on what and when. It makes it very useful for a little retrospective analysis and might be an interesting blog post for others who want to know what it costs to cruise in the Caribbean. 

We need to heavily caveat some of this by saying that we had just bought the boat so some expenditure was for boat maintenance / upgrades / modifications and we could have spent a lot less by being even more frugal, i.e. not eating out, not drinking (as much), not buying souvenirs, clearing in to less islands etc. Where possible I shall explain each figure's breakdown.

To summarise, these are our expenses from January to December 2012, split into categories:

Boat	$8,500.00
Food	$7,000.00
Drinks	$1,500.00
Cruising Fees	$1,040.00
Transport	$600.00
Entertainment	$600.00
Souvenirs	$430.00

Breakdown:

Boat - Boat maintenance, parts and upgrades. Also includes gasoline, diesel and propane.

10% of the total was spent on fuel for the inboard, outboard and propane for cooking (approx. $800)

30% of the total spent was spent on repairs to the boat. Important to note that we were new to boat ownership and so when the majority of things were broken at the beginning, we paid to get them fixed rather than attempt ourselves. This soon changed when we sussed the extortionate labour fees and we grew more confident in our ability. 

With the amount of money we spent at Island Waterworld and Budget Marine, we should have shares in the company! 

For example we bought our rod, reel, lures etc and classified them all as boat. If you fully kit out your boat in a cheaper country (US etc) you should be able reduce this figure drastically as there is a significant premium on goods purchased in the Caribbean islands!

Food - Grocery bills and meals out

15% of the total amount was spent on eating out. This could include anything from a $1 roti on the roadside to a sit down meal. We ate out about 50 times that year, roughly once a week. We hardly had dinner out but often grabbed something from a roadside shack as it was sometimes cheaper than buying the groceries and going back to the boat to cook them. We are foodies and love trying new things, with the shacks being a delight of ours, we easily justify this expense to ourselves.

The majority of the expense was bulk buying to stock up the boat and we still have many tins and dried goods onboard from Grenada, St Martin and Curacao.

Drinks - Drinks ashore (often so we could get the internet password) or specific booze buying to stock up our drinks cabinet. Also includes water for our tanks.

30% of the total was spent on drinks so we could use the internet in a bar. We don't have any form of internet or email onboard so this was our only method of contacting friends and family when there was no wifi in an anchorage (which was on most occasions).

Only 5% of the total was spent on water to fill the tanks. In general, water is cheap in the Caribbean as long as you are smart with where you fill up…avoid dry islands, use the lush islands such as Dominica, Grenada and St Vincent.

Cruising Fees - mooring fees, clearing in / out, permits and national park fees

50% of the total was spent on clearing into 22 countries that year (some islands we visited twice). The rest was on mooring fees in the BVIs and US VIs, marina fees in Puerto Rico and Colombia and national park fees in Tobago Cays etc.

Transport - Buses, taxis, hire cars and the fuel for them

50% of the total was spent on hiring cars / mopeds in Montserrat, Anegada (BVIs), Puerto Rico and Bonaire including the fuel.

Entertainment - Sightseeing (e.g. entrance fees to site and tour guides), Amazon e-books and other goodies for us both

Souvenirs - self explanatory

I could go into loads more detail so if anyone reading this has any queries, just comment on this post and we'll get back to you.

We have also included a snapshot of a typical months expenses (in the Caribbean). Don't judge us :)

Boat maintenance - new windlass cover, propane and diesel	$150
Food costs - big stock up in Grenada for trip to Bonaire	$500
Drinks - internet use	$60
Transport costs - buses	$25
Entertainment - new underwater camera	$400
Clothes - laundry	$5
Cruising Fees - clearing out of Grenada and into St Vincent	$50
Souvenirs	$0

Preparing and avoiding Ernesto

31st July
5pm: Sat at the Anchorage Hotel, Dominica checking the weather. Front coming our way that looks pretty ugly and NOAA has classified it as a tropical storm for now with 30% chance of it turning into a cyclone. Both agreed to leave the next morning and head South out of its path. Being our first season in the Caribbean, we would like it to be hurricane free!

1st August
7am: Left Dominica for Admiralty Bay, Bequia, requiring an overnight passage of 140 miles. 
10am: 3 yachts go zooming past us heading North, we are the only boat heading South - slightly disconcerting!
4pm: Lost 2 lures already, one from a big strike that took the whole trace and lure with it and another to the wind gen…
5pm: Text Mum to ask her to check the hurricane website for update on the tropical storm. Its a storm with 70% chance of becoming a cyclone now and has been named Ernesto. We read up on the rest of the islands potential for decent hurricane holes if the worst were to happen and both agreed we would stick to our plan of going to Bequia.
8pm: Very light winds in the lee of Martinique so engine has gone on to save our sanity and increase the speed from 1.6kts to 6kts. How we love our refurbished gearbox!

2nd August
8am: See 5 yachts heading North, why is everyone heading North, what do they know that we don't know?? Slightly more concerned...
12pm: Made it to Admiralty Bay, Bequia and immediately went online to check the status of Ernesto. The eye is heading for St Vincent which is only 30 miles away so should miss us but we are going to prepare for the worst anyway.
1pm: Dylan jumps in and I let out the rode for a second anchor which Dylan beds. We then lash the bimini down, put the mainsail cover on, clear any loose lines from the deck and cockpit, take the pegs and washing line down and take off the monitor wind vane rudder.
3pm: Ernesto is downgraded to a depression so we stop our preparation there and don't go as far as taking the sails down that we had intended to do.
8pm: Go to bed and keep the VHF on for any updates from the coastguard.

3rd August
2am: Wake up to hear the coastguard saying the depression has been upgraded to a tropical storm and will hit the Windward Islands around 8am.
7am: Wake up and prepare for the incoming storm.
8am: Nothing happens….
9am: Nothing happens and there is so little wind, Orion is dancing around the 2 anchors doing 360s. Luckily the charter cats that anchored really near us on both sides have left (nutters).
11am: Heavy rain with a couple of gusts that only reach 31 knots.
3pm: Dylan jumps in to check our 2 anchors in case strong winds follow the depression. He gets chatting to a French couple who ask him to help re-anchor their boat. Good job he did as the anchor hadn't been set and if strong winds came though they would have gone walkies.

After all that preparation, the wind didn't come through very strong other than the usual trade winds (20-25 knots). Being our first encounter with a tropical storm we were glad of the practice, learnt a lot and hope that we never have to do it for real!


Goodbye Ernesto and hello Florence. Maybe this one will be for real? For anyone wanting to keep a track of the potential hurricanes, we use this website - http://www.nhc.noaa.gov

Our First Fishy

Maybe this fish will help my waistline /
pants falling off

Our maiden voyage with the new rod and reel proudly on display. We trolled all the way from Marigot Bay (St Martin) to Anguilla. Just as we were about to enter the bay and reel in the lure, the ever exciting ZZZZZZZZZZ of the reel sounded.

Battle stations! Grab the helm, luff up, power down, get the gaff...

We were not going to lose another fish! Still smarting over the loss of that beautiful Dorado all those many weeks ago.

Looking for a good fight, I settled in for a long battle of man vs fish!

Alas it was not to be. This very tired little mackerel proved an un worthy adversary for my new mega rod and reel.

Whilst I brought the fish along side, Sally expertly flailed the gaff like some sort of rabid pikeman and successfully hooked him. We then brought him into the cockpit and shared a decent helping of alcohol with him which successfully calmed the fish's nerves (permanently).

It was our first fish. A 2 ft Cero Mackerel.

Was great eating and tasted even better having been caught by Team Orion!

Diving on RMS Rhone

RMS Rhone was a 310ft British packet ship owned by Royal Mail that did passages between England and the West Indies. It sank in the late 1800s during a hurricane and remains fairly well intact today.

We had been told about this site and how good it was from multiple people. We were yet to scuba dive in the Caribbean so we figured this would be a great dive to start again. 30ft in the shallowest section at the stern and 80ft in the deepest section at the bow we were in for two dives.

Sail Caribbean Dive were our choice in dive company and they were fantastic. We were anchored in Cooper Island so a short dinghy ride ashore brought us to one of their bases. We sat in the shade of a palm tree whilst they loaded up the boat, carried our gear and bottles and summoned us when they were about to leave. Never before have we had such VIP treatment when going on a dive! We were used to carrying our heavy bottles and rigging up the kit so this was total luxury!

We board the Newton 36 dive vessel and speed off to Salt Island where the wreck is located. A fun fact about that island – the residents of this island rescued the survivors from RMS Rhone and salvaged what they could of the wreck. Being decent honest people they sent what they salvaged back to the Queen. The Queen being so grateful announced that as a thank you, the residents of the island don't need to pay taxes anymore but must provide a token pound of salt once a year. From 2005 the island has been uninhabited but the salt is still harvested. The Tortolan government send a team round to the island to get a pound of salt and send it on to the Queen!

We reach the dive site and put our kit on. Dylan and I, keen to ensure we follow the correct process ask the dive master to show us the buddy checks. When finished a cocky almost transparent white American guy goes to me 'oh you are clearly new to this'. I reply 'no, but we haven't dived since last September' to which he responds 'gosh thats an awful long time'. He riled me, especially when he didn't bother with a buddy check himself. Remember this later in the blog...

We straddle jump into the water and all 8 of us descend down the mooring line to the bottom. As we are dumping air out of our BCDs, a huge almost majestic sight looms into our vision. This wreck was some ship and is now home to excellent coral, sponges and fans. The excellent visibility highlights the bright colours against the rusting iron hull. We swam around the bow section first, relatively intact and come to a section where the wood has completely rotted away. Here, one by one we penetrate the wreck (swim through, to all non divers). We swam in to what appears to be a pitch black hole but no sooner have you stuck your head through, you are greeted with shafts of light showing the inside of the ship, more corals and tons of reef fish. At this point I start to get a good idea of the people with us on our dive. The cocky American guy is flailing around, kicking us in the mask, swimming right in front of us unable to control his buoyancy and looking like a spastic seahorse. For the rest of the dive we swim with one eye on him, the other on the wreck, keeping as far away as possible – there is always one on every dive we do! We see a sea turtle, lobsters and plenty of decent sized reef fish. After 20 mins we surface and commence our 'surface interval' preparing for dive 2.

Dive 2 takes us to the stern section where we again penetrate the wreck and swim over the huge 15 foot diameter brass propeller. Only one passenger survived the wreck and he was staying in cabin 27. The porthole of cabin 27 is still intact and is considered lucky by all divers. It is tradition to rub the brass 3 times clockwise so thats what we do – it is really shiny compared to the rest of the wreck due to the amount of hands that have continuously rubbed it!

Dylan at some time in the dive cut his hand on barnacles and during dive 2 he squeezes it and shows me what looks like green goo oozing out of it. At this point I think he has a serious infection (already) and take note that we will have to check it out when we surface. So first thing I do when we get back on the boat is grab his hand expecting to see some alien liquid covering his palm, instead I see dried blood...the light distortion at a depth of 80 feet has changed what is normally dark red to a slime green!

Ice

An item you just take for granted in a house but becomes such a big deal in the Caribbean on a boat. We have a fridge /freezer onboard Orion but the freezer never gets cold enough to produce ice as we never have enough battery power to keep the unit on 24/7. However, when you pour that glass of rum and coke, gin and tonic, malibu and diet coke (don't judge me!) - there is nothing better than a dozen ice cubes to accompany that sundowner, especially after a 30+ degree day toiling on the boat.

Enterprising businesses on the waterfront have big ice machines outside, selling bags of ice for $2. When we feel like treating ourselves we shall pick up a bag and quickly dinghy back to the boat, attack it with an ice pick to shape it so it will fit in our freezer section. It will last almost 2 evenings before it is completely melted.

Now if we go to a catamaran say and they have an ice machine onboard, woooow that is just absolute luxury and we do a little dance, excited at the prospect of having ice in our drinks the whole night. Dylan has taken to eating the ice when he doesn't want a drink, just to make sure he gets his money's worth prior to it being reduced to a puddle and finding its way out of our fridge and into the bilge.

Caribbean bus music...

We have heard this song played repetitively in pretty much ever bus we have taken. Mostly it is played at 97 decibels. I must admit it is kinda catchy albeit I don't have a clue what most of the words are.

Tommy Lee - Some Bwoy (yes, that means Some Boy).

Try reading the comments if you want a bit of a tongue twisting puzzle in deciphering the "English" language.

You have nothing to fear...

but fear itself...

And never has this been more true. There were a lot of things that I was very anxious about when I first convinced Sally to come sailing.

Sure I had sailed a boat before, I had taken watches and manned the helm on a few night passages while both racing and for pleasure. I had crewed countless times on racers and cruisers, with friends family and competitive skippers. What I had never done before, was everything else...sailing is the easy part!

I had never owned a boat before. Short of a Day Skipper course to teach some of the basics around mooring, anchoring, navigation and seamanship, all of this was new to me.

I had a list of 'things that made me anxious', that I tried really hard to research in order to become more confident with knowledge (theory) prior to actually doing them. These included, anchoring in a crowded bay (how to pick the right spot, how to set an anchor, how not to drag, how not to look like a novice / idiot doing it), clearing in and out of a port (what documents are required and what is the process?), yacht maintenance (what anti-fouling to use, when to use a primer, engine basics), etc.

Our first 'dropping of the anchor', I made sure we had a experienced friend with us to help guide us and ensure we did not arrive in some one else's lap later that evening when the wind picked up.

We had to anchor a number of times since then just Sally and I. I must admit we are getting pretty good at it. I guide us in while Sally does her bit on the bow. I still have yet to convince Sal to dive on the anchor and bed it in, she much prefers to sit on the bow and offer guidance. As it turns out, anchoring is not a big deal after you have done it a few times and we are no longer daunted by it.

However we had never cleared in or out of customs before. We dressed up, yachtie style – meaning I wore shoes, socks, longs and a button up shirt...I wouldn't usually, way too hot. Nerves were on edge...do we in fact have the right paperwork and documents...what is the procedure...who do we see first?

Earlier that week friends had shown us where we had to go and who to see first. We strolled in acting like pro's. “Hi, We would like to clear out” I said to the immigration officer. To which he responded. “Coom bak 1pm, cus we is on lunch at 12.”. I looked at the clock...it was 11:45.

We took the paperwork with us and filled it out over a nice fruit smoothie. Sure we had to wait an hour (and a bit) but hey, we are in the Caribbean. Everything runs on GMT here we are told. “Grenada Maybe Time”. So one of the biggest lessons we learnt was patience.

Sure, in fact we did not have all the right paperwork as we did not have a form to clear us in. The previous owner had it. But... as with all things in the Caribbean, nothing is insurmountable and they waved us through after we explained we had just bought the boat. (We did show our Bill of Sale to prove it).

In short, the documents you will need to clear out appear to be...

1. Passports for you and your crew
2. Previous document clearing you in / out of your previous port

As for your ships registration, it will probably be required when we check in some where (but it was not required to clear out).

The process is probably going to be different in each port, but all in all by asking a few people, they will be able to tell you what to do.

Clearing out (and in) is no longer as daunting as it used to be.

Anchoring and more to the point dragging, is still a bit of a concern. When a big gust comes through I tend to shoot up to the cockpit and eyeball all the other yachts to check that we are not dragging and they are not dragging into our pride and joy! The night likes to play little tricks with the mind though. Shapes always appear closer at night and swinging around in the dark leads one to think that you are moving towards other shapes. However, I left the Nav Instruments on the other day during a good blow to see what we peaked at. 36 knots! While probably not a massive blow by some standards, it is not what we were expecting in the “calm” Caribbean. I anxiously sat in the cockpit for 30 minutes listening to the wind, watching the swing and the other boats. I ran all the scenarios. If we drag, then I will wake Sally and we will up anchor and get out of the anchorage and re-anchor somewhere or hove to just out side the bay. If they drag, I will try get their attention. Dinghy over and bang on their hull or something. (note to self: get a fog horn).

Needless to say, our little 35lbs CQR held us firm. I dived on the anchor the next day and we had not dragged a foot. Our regime of: anchor, leave it for 10 minutes to settle, put the snubber on, reverse on it at 2000 revs for 20 seconds and then dive on it and bed it in even further, seems to be paying off.

As a note, chain does you no good sitting in a chain locker...as a result, we pay out all our chain regardless of the depth of water. As I write this we are in 20ft of water and I have 140ft of chain out. As I have mentioned before, about 40 feet of chain is not even touching the bottom due to the arc of the chain. This extends to 50 / 60 ft when a solid gust pulls the snubber out the water at what looks like parallel to the sea bed. If I lived by the 5:1 ratio, sometimes as little as 40ft of chain would be on the sea bed. I have 150ft on board and wish I had 300...

I had my best sleep the other night. I only woke up 3 times to check our situation (using two of those as opportunities to have a covert pee over the side while it was still night).

The more we live on board at anchor, the more we are relaxing. We trust the holding power of our bedded-in anchor and confident about the terrain we are anchored in. Sure we have manually moved an anchor just so I could bed it in sand (as opposed to weeds) but hey, I needed the exercise and the lung training.

All in all, clearing out was not a big deal. We look forward to clearing in and seeing how that process works. Off to Union Island to find that out!

A proposed route...

With sailing, plans change with the wind, literally!
We have encountered so many cruisers that have made plans to meet friends and family in certain locations but have been unable to get there in time due to engine / repair issues or just for lack of a weather window.

As such, the best we can do is tell people where we think we will be going to and when and let them decide if they want to be there at a similar time. Fix a firm caveat on that though...we might not ever get there!

The issues with sailing in the Caribbean like many other places in the world is the weather systems. In the Caribbean, we have a good weather window from 1st December to 1st July. Then it becomes hurricane season and not so much fun being in your floating home that moves like a tortoise (relative to a hurricane).
So people tend to 'winter' their boats for hurricane season by pulling them out the water and going back to the US or Europe etc. The Caribbean gets a little quieter during the off season.

As such, our plan, now that we have splashed (yachtie talk for getting the boat into the water), will be to go up the windward islands, then as high up the leeward islands as possible in a 2 month period before turning around and coming south again. It would be good to get to the British Virgin Islands, but it is fairly tight considering we still have a lot of learning to do on the boat and would then need to get her back down to Grenada (ish) by July.

But it is not a race! Sally and I were thinking about going up there quickly and coming down slowly.

Without having given it too much thought, our proposed route is as follows:

Leave Grenada at the end of February
Carriacou for a few days
Union Island
Tobago Cays
Canouan
Mustique
Bequia
St Vincent
St Lucia
Martinique
Dominica
Guadeloupe
Montserrat
St Kitts and Nevis
Anguilla
British Virgin Islands in about end of April (although looking at the above list, we will probably never get there as we are in no rush and want to enjoy all the places we look to sail to)

Whatever we don't see on the way up, we will try see on the way down.

But as with all sailing, this is very weather dependent. If the wind decides to blow in the wrong direction for 2 weeks, we could spend 2 weeks there.

On the way back down, we would like to go to Barbados. I reckon that this will be in about July.

After that...who knows!

The Kindness of Cruisers...

Dedicated to Vernon and Donna on Endless Love Too, Sarah and Doug on Mindemoya, Keith and Marcey on Mimi - fair winds.

Where to start.

It has been quite an eye opener for us London folk. We lived in one of the biggest cities in the world and did not even know our next door neighbours. We do not speak to people on the transport system and we most certainly do not go around asking random people's advice. Keeping our anonyminity was what we were used to.

But cruising is different. It is a community where every one knows what it is like to be novices and some
profess to still be learning after 20 years on the water (yes and on the flip side, a few do profess to know it all).

There is always common ground and a story that can be shared. Generally these are the frustrating ones of parts that once ordered, have never arrived or the hairy ones of being stuck in hurricanes or the usual story of charterers (or the French) dragging anchor into you.

We have met some wonderful people whilst getting the boat ready in the yard. They have taught us a lot and asked nothing in return. Most are cruisers that take a few months off every year to sail the Caribbean, some are just starting their adventures and some ending theirs, selling up and moving back to dry land.

To aid in our networking with salty folk, there is a daily VHF session every morning for cruisers to listen in and find out all sorts of info, ranging from weather to stuff for sale to when the next get-together / event will be. Cruisers ask questions and for help regarding all sorts of matters and the forum of listeners all too often has a useful phone number or post session call to discuss.

Regardless of the radio to hide behind, yachties are a social bunch. We have had drinks with a few people now despite being the 'new kids on the block' (figuratively and literally as we are most people's children's age...or younger). It is great to sit in another boats cockpit, admire their home and take note of the little tips and tricks they use. How to keep your head from blocking, best way to store fruit and veg in the heat, etc. Their stories are also inspirational as they tell tales of other beautiful anchorages and islands just begging to be explored.

We have received a few gifts from cruisers who are returning home and no longer had need for a few items. All that they ask in return is that we pay it forward. What a wonderful attitude to have to life...

We have a yacht...

And we shall call her Orion!

Orion, often referred to as The Hunter, is a prominent constellation located on the celestial equator and visible throughout the world. It is one of the most conspicuous, and most recognisable constellations in the night sky. Its name refers to Orion, a hunter in Greek mythology. - Wikipedia

When we first saw her online, she ticked almost every box for us. Plus, she is in Grenada!

Something was indeed written in the stars, for in November of 2011, I bought Sally's Christmas present. It was a star in Orion's Belt. The thought process being that as we cruised with nothing but the stars to blanket us, we could look up and try and find her star in one of the most visible constellations. 

It was a heck of a gamble buying one way flights to come to a foreign country to look at a boat, but it was well worth it, for she is beautiful.

She is a 1979 Tartan 37 Centre Board. 

There is all the cruising gear onboard that we could need, including a monitor wind vane for long passages.

What a relief to finally have a boat. She cost us a packet and is slightly older than what we had originally set out to buy, but the previous owner has looked after her incredibly well. Buying it from Mike Young (from Vermont) was a tough exercise as you could just see the emotion in his eyes. He was a VERY reluctant seller. What a great guy too. He spent hours showing us all the additions and tweaks that he had made to the boat. How they all work and what goes where. We are very grateful to him for his help in teaching us all about her.

Although she is 33 years old now, Orion has spent most of her life in fresh water or on the hard. The first 20 years she was on Lake Champlain in Vermont. The sailing season is only about 4 months of the year up there and the rest of the time she was wintered on the hard. 

Mike and his wife Joanne bought the boat in 1996 and got her cruising ready to sail down to the Caribbean in 2000. After sailing her down there they kept her out the water and would use her for 4 / 5 months of the year. As such she has very little wear on her. Hull is in great condition as are the sails.

We are very excited to get aboard and start making her ours. Mike has left us a ton of stuff on board and we need to get our heads around what goes where etc.

We have got some work to do on her, like paint the bottom and sort out a few issues with canvas while she is on the hard, but looking even more forward to getting her onto a mooring and chilling out!

Florida Road Trip

Standing at the carousel quietly mocking the Justin Bieber lookalike and old dears with toy boys at their side, we were remembering all the stories we had heard of baggage going missing when using interconnecting flights in the US. Cursing the fact I hadn't slipped a bikini into my hand luggage 'just in case' I was very relieved to see our North Face and Helly Hansen luggage pushing out of the plastic slats towards us.

Hauling the heavy bags onto our backs, we set off in search of the car rental area - what turned out to be a total MISSION away using bouncy travelators to speed up the route. Our old faithfuls Enterprise were our company of choice and never failing to please they gave us a free upgrade to a Dodge Avenger - butch name, butch car! As I quickly realised, everything in the US is big and I was very glad we had already decided that Dylan would do all the driving, considerably bigger than the Daewoo Matiz (0.8) that I was used to driving back home. Things got off to an interesting start when we attempted to navigate the car park in the opposite direction to the one way system, all smiles and waves we did a quick u turn and sped out into the night before any further embarrassment was caused.

Continuous chanting of 'driving on the right' got us to Ft Lauderdale in one piece, unfortunately Dylan only figured out how to use cruise control 4 days into driving having already clocked up 900 miles.

The next 3 days were a blur of yacht viewings, communication with brokers and not so cheap motels. In Fort Lauderdale we encountered Pepper, an over the top American yacht broker with whiter than white teeth who had previously sold a boat to Tom Cunliffe (Dylan's hero). Disappointed by the boats in this area, we headed up to Fort Pierce and checked into a truckers motel where their idea of a 'continental breakfast' was a honey bun in a vacuum sealed plastic packet with a filter coffee the colour of dishwasher, we soon learned not to bother getting up early to take advantage of the free food on offer!

Up till now we had made do with our UK phones on pay as you go but this was proving costly when ringing in the US. Sprint (an unknown company to us) was the first phone shop we came across and we purchased a 'boost' package which gave us a very simple phone and then $2 a day from then on as long as we want to use it for giving us unlimited minutes to anywhere in the US.

From Fort Pearce we headed to St Augustine and as we were rounding the bend near another boat yard that could potentially have our ideal yacht...the cop car behind us started flashing his lights. Pulling over we start to rack our brains for what we could have done wrong, driving licence and rental agreement at the ready, we wind down the window, our eyes in a direct line to his very shiny belt complete with taser gun. Turns out we rolled at a stop sign, knuckles rapped we got away with a warning and went on our way - from then on Dylan was like a person who was on his driving test, all signs and speed limits strictly adhered to!

Having clocked up so many miles of driving on the interstates (although quick, there is nothing much to see), we went to check out the famous Daytona and Flagler beach on the A1A highway. WOW what a view, with stretches of ocean or intracoastal highway to see, we crawled at a snails pace as we oohed and aaaahed our way south. The property in the area was a sight to be seen, mostly on stilts they offered uninterrupted views of the ocean, real estate to aspire towards!

Having taken a sharp right from Daytona Beach we headed to St Petersburg to view boats on the west coast and then made our way back to Miami via the Everglades on the southern tip of Florida.  Having no choice but to watch Swamp Monsters when Dylan was in charge of the remote, I had a new respect for their profession, seeing stereotypical swamp boats driving around the mangroves and thinking of all the crocodiles that could be lurking in the greenery!

Back in Miami we stayed with a friend of Dylan's right near the beach. Alex (an ex work colleague of Dylan's) invited us to a Puerto Rican BBQ and it was here that we got our first lesson in Caribbean rum. Having only tasted the western version of rum such as Malibu, Captain Morgans and Bacardi, it was an eye opener to see, smell and taste the bottles and bottles of home made rum with different fermenting fruit inside. What friendly, hospitable people and it only put more pressure on us to get this boat found, bought and sailed to the Caribbean ASAP!

No trip to Florida is complete without visiting the Keys so it was on day 2 that we decided to day trip to Key West. Five hours worth of driving one way was a little steep but totally worth it. With 120 miles of Overseas Highway to travel on and 42 bridges to cross, it made for a fantastic drive. At some points it feels like you are driving on water with only ocean on both sides of you and not a car in sight.

Pelicans are sat staring at you from the sides of the road and almost every town has a dive school, fishing shop and seafood restaurant specialising in their local crab (stoned crab). Key West was our destination and once we had mastered the horrific one way system in the town (seeing a pattern here?) we headed to Fort Zachary Taylor Park. A magnificent white coral beach surrounded by palm trees where we soaked up the sunshine before making the 5 hour ride back to Miami.

Dylan's birthday today as I write and his only birthday request was to have a lie in and go for a walk along the beach. Man of simple needs he didn't even want a present and I suppose why would you, having not worked for a month now and with 11 more months of Caribbean sailing in front of us can life really get much better than this?!

The plan...

The initial plan...subject to change at a moments notice!

Quite a bit of thought and research was done around what we wanted to do and hence what we wanted. As we are both relatively inexperienced with cruising, we wanted to ensure that we started off in a location that was not only fantastic for sailing, but also not too challenging so as to allow us to learn safely and comfortably. Hence us deciding that the Caribbean would be an ideal place. Many of the islands / anchorages are day sails apart with the odd over night passage required. The climate is tropical, water gin clear and it is a beautiful place to sail. We did initially toy with the idea of buying a yacht in Europe / UK and sailing it locally and prepping it before then crossing the Atlantic, however a number of factors dissuaded us. The price of yachts in Europe are a lot higher than the US, sailing in the UK can be a bit chilly (even in summer) and doing a transatlantic crossing might scare the crew from ever setting foot on a yacht again. The game plan is to pick up a yacht in Florida and sail it down the leeward and windward isles and be out of the hurricane belt by July. A bit of a push seeing as the season has already begun and buying a yacht is not just a "jump on it and sail it away the next day" sort of activity! Generally a fair amount of time will need to be spent preparing a yacht for cruising.
There is also the risk or "analysis paralysis" - Sitting in a marina trying to buy every contingency piece of gear, waiting for the perfect weather, needing to do "just one last thing" etc
There is also the risk of being naive and heading out under equipped / prepared and running into issues.Getting the right balance is tricky and different for each individual.

So now we had a jump off location to start our adventure; our next step was to identify our requirements for a yacht!