Will be flying home to Texas in 2010 after all

Last year when we decided to keep the boat in Malaysia for a year so that we could do SE Asia land/air travel, we did not plan for both of us to make a trip home in 2010. Bill would make his annual trip home to Houston in November 2010 for the required VA medical examination and renewal of his prescription, but to save money I would remain on the boat in Malaysia.

At the time we made those plans we did not realize that one must attend to renewal of captains license and TWIC 6 months before their expiration. Both our USCG Merchant Marine captain licenses and our TWICs expire in May 2011. I had figured we would fly home from Egypt in late April 2011 to attend to those renewals. Ah-hah! The new information required that we reevaluate those plans.

Today we purchased round-trips flights from Langawi to Singapore and from Singapore to Houston, stopping briefly each way at Tokyo. We will be in Houston from October 27 until November 29. Hopefully, we can renew both our TWIC and Merchant Marine licenses during that time frame. This will still provide us ample time after our return to Langkawi to provision the boat and sail to Phuket for a few weeks before beginning those dreaded long passages to India and up the Red Sea.

So we do both get to enjoy our annual trip home in 2010 ---- just a bit earlier in the year than usual. We will celebrate Thanksgiving with the family this year instead of Christmas.

Old friends arrive and new friends depart

We stuck our heads out at 0700 this morning........hoping to say goodbye to Australian friends Reese and Linda on S/V Windy Spirit who have been docked just a few slips away from us for the past 7 months. Unfortunately they and their catamaran were nowhere in sight. They must have departed at first light to meet up with the Sail Malaysia East Rally. Reese and Linda decided that Malaysia was just too far from Australia, so they are leisurely sailing eastward with hopes of going over the top of Papua New Guinea and possibly to Vanautu as they make their way back towards Australia. We wish them safe voyage and hope they don't have to endure too much upwind sailing.

But as our newer friends depart, older friends arrive.

We met Bill and Amy on S/V Estrellita at Hiva Oa in the Marqueses of French Polynesia in June 2008. They went one direction and we another. A couple of months later we met again in Bora Bora. Again we went our separate ways. Another couple of months later we met again in Vava'U in the Kingdom of Tonga. In October S/V Estrellita headed north and S/V BeBe headed south. We sailed to New Zealand; then back north to Vanuatu, New Caledonia, Australia, Indonesia and Singapore. Bill and Amy sailed to Samoa, Palau, Truk, the Philippines and other island groups north of the equator. We have stayed in touch off and on via email and Facebook, but honestly did not think we would meet up again. Their stories and photos often made Bill and I wish that we had followed their "path less traveled." We loved New Zealand, Vanuatu and New Caledonia; but Australia (most especially The Great Barrier Reef) was a huge disappointment for us. Heck, we could have followed the much more interesting route of S/V Estrellita and simply visited New Zealand via airplane. Wish we had put a lot more thought into our route planning before we reached the turning point of Tonga.

It was so great to see Bill and Amy again and catching up on stories of their adventures. Last evening Amy was telling us a story and mentioned a boat they had met with 2 small adopted Chinese girls. S/V Red Thread!! What a small world! We had met S/V Red Thread back in the Caribbean. They sailed to Galapagos, Easter Island, Chile (where a storm caught them at anchor and damaged the boat on rocks and took a year to repair), back to Easter Island and all the way through the South and North Pacific to Hong Kong. They sailed the farthest distance in one year of any cruising boat we have every heard of -- almost 15,000 NM from southern tip of Chile to Hong Kong in just under 12 months. They met Bill and Amy somewhere near the end of that long journey to Hong Kong. Such a huge ocean and 2 boats we know happen to meet up.

Love catching up with old friends!

Costs of Cruising

Money -- that topic no one likes to talk about. Someone needs to tell the truth.

Like many cruisers and sailors, I follow a number of online sailing groups. The question of how much it costs to cruise is frequently asked by those contemplating casting off the dock lines. It seems that most people think this can be done on a tight budget. And I guess it can if you don't mind living without any conveniences on a spartan boat and eating like you are in 1850 in the mountain backwoods. And not doing any land travel at those exotic destinations......which seems to us to negate the entire concept of sailing around to different countries. The old adage is that it will cost as much as you have to spend......which does seem to be true.

Bill and I do not live an extravagant lifestyle We did that back in our thirties and are SO over living in that manner. We live pretty simply on the boat. I enjoy cooking and baking, and Bill enjoys the dishes I create. But we also enjoy occasional treats at nice restaurants. Bill drinks 2 beers daily but I rarely drink alcohol We both enjoy a bottle of good wine with certain foods. We prefer a beautiful quiet anchorage over a marina most of the time; although it seems we have spent an inordinate amount of time in marinas in New Zealand, Australia and now Malaysia. We do try to make an annual trip back to the States to visit family and friends. That is a splurge for me, but Bill must make an annual trip home for medical visits to the VA hospital for check-ups. We wear the typical sailor clothing; gave up being clothes horses long ago.

That description should provide you with a good idea of our cruising lifestyle. Not extravagant but also definitely not basic. We do carry insurance on our boat since it is our home and does represent a substantial financial asset. And learning of all the boats lost in the South Pacific over the past couple of years has reinforced our decision to continue to carry full insurance on the boat. We do realize that if the boat is damaged then we are responsible for paying for the environmental damage that might result, especially from diesel carried in the main tank. The cost of that alone is enough to make us realize that in today's world boats definitely need to be insured.

Most people we have met out cruising only have a vague idea of how much they are spending to cruise. We haven't met anyone who truly tracks all costs.

We do.

I write down what we have spent every single time we return to the boat from an outing. This only takes a moment and quickly became a habit when we first moved aboard. After all, I did accounting for decades and was accustomed to keeping track of money. For example, Bill went for a walk this afternoon and brought back an ice cream for me. (I know; isn't he sweet!) The ice cream cost only 2.5 ringitt. I converted that to US dollars and recorded 77 cents in my 'budget' book. At the end of each month I tally everything spent and transfer the data to an Excel workbook. I have done this since the first day we moved aboard. If you track every penny spent, it adds up to more than one might guess.

Before we started cruising, we had hoped to do this minimal lifestyle for $35,000 per year. People in the online sailing groups thought that was way too high. But I knew it actually was less than realistic and would require cutting corners as tight as possible. I figured a more realistic figure would be in the neighborhood of 50 to 60k annually. Another old adage is that once you have compiled a cruising budget; double it; and that will be about what you will actually spend.

We recently celebrated our 4th anniversary of living aboard full-time. Today I decided to compare the percentages of where our money has been spent during that time. Blogger does not allow me to upload an Excel spreadsheet, so I have uploaded a screen shot of the totals. Click on the image for a larger view. Haul-outs are not included in the percentages of annual expenditures of each category. We prefer to look at the percentages of monthly expenditures and keep haul-outs separate because we plan to do haul-out bi-annually in the future. The grand totals include our haul-outs. That explains why the total spent is 110.4%. The negative amount shown in year 4 for charts, etc., comes from the sale of used guides when we finished the Pacific. We did make a trip home in Year Three, but the cost was not separated from the Tours and Sightseeing that year. I decided it was not worth my time to dig back and separate those costs since both involve air/land travel.

Others might be able to cruise on less money, but we are pretty careful and these have been our true costs. The Entertainment category includes all restaurant and bar visits. Customs and Fees was the category that surprised us. We had no idea before we started this venture that it would cost so much for clearance fees. And we handle clearances ourselves in all countries that do not require the services of an agent. If we used agents at every country then those costs would be considerably higher. The category of Boat Supplies and Maintenance includes every last dime spent to maintain the boat. This includes filters, boat soap, wax......every little expense.....not just the replacement parts that most sailors consider maintenance costs. Those water filters and that little bottle of polish to keep the stainless steel gleaming are just as much costs of boat maintenance as replacement pumps or a new radio.

And, when you gasp at the total spent for routine maintenance..........remember..........this is for an excellent Amel Super Maramu 2000 yacht in perfect condition that was built and left the factory in January 2003. And Bill does all the work himself except for the occasional wash and wax in lower cost labor areas such as Malaysia. Maintenance on an older boat or different quality construction boat will likely cost more. Or if you must pay professionals for their labor instead of acting as your own mechanic, refrigeration specialist, electrician, rigger, plumber, computer consultant, etc.

If you are going to be a cruiser, you must be prepared to wear a lot of hats!

Sad to learn of another boat lost on reef

We were saddened to learn that S/V Airwego was lost on a reef in Samoa. We were just casual acquaintances of Mike and Cindy on S/V Airwego and have not had contact with them in over a year. But as cruisers and fellow sailors, our thoughts go out to them. How horrible to lose your home!

S/V Airwego was following S/V Charisma (an Amel Mango owned by our friends Alan and Kristen) through a narrow pass through reef. Charisma made it through the pass without incident, but Airwego apparently clipped the side of the pass. The ocean swell and breaking waves put their boat up onto the reef. This was during low tide. As the tide came in the boat was holed and it filled with water. Long story short: they saved as much as they could from the boat. A tug was sent out to pump out the diesel to reduce environmental damage.

Mike and Cindy were en route to Hawaii on their return to the USA. We feel their loss and wish them the best on whatever course life takes them now.

This makes 6 boats that we have known personally that have been lost since we transited the South Pacific in 2008. One went down in a hurricane; one filled with water and sank enroute between New Zealand and Fiji last May; one was lost in the tsunami in Samoa last fall (spring south of the equator); and three were lost on reefs. Plus, we know of 3 other boats that were lost on reefs; but we did not personally know the owners. Doesn't that seem like an awfully high number of cruising yachts lost in just one ocean in 18 months!

I will be so very glad when we transit the Suez Canal and leave most of the reefs behind us for awhile.

Uploaded photos from China trip

Photos have now been uploaded to all the postings for our trip to Hong Kong & Kowloon, China and Macau. I still haven't done the Picassa album yet (and may never get around to that), but the blog photos are finished.