Friendly marina discounts

I was going through some old receipts. Many of them were from our sailing trip. One of the nice things to discover is how many times marinas gave us discounts. There were the normal discounts from things like being a Boat US member. On top of that, often they just gave us big discounts from their normal rates.

At one marina the captain on the boat next to us said that the marina people really liked us. I guess they did, judging from the discount. The dockmaster seemed amazed that we had come so far on a small boat and that we were having a good time. He took an additional 20% off our bill.

Another marina charged us the rate that their condo members receive. Staying at that luxury resort was actually cheaper than staying at another marina that provided no services.

Even though our boat is small, it does take up slip space that could have been filled with a boat 2 or 3 times our size. On the other hand, we did not use a lot of marina resources. It's not like we were running AC units or freezers. Our dockside water usage consisted of filling a few water jugs.

We stayed at marinas about half the time. Mostly it was to resupply, do laundry, or to avoid bad weather. The longest we stayed out on anchor was 5 days. We did stay about a week at Calidesi Island State Park, but at $19/night it was hard not to.

Some people rarely go to marinas. They tended to fall into two categories: bigger well equipped boats, or long term live aboards on a budget. I thought that since my lovely wife was crazy enough to come with me, the least I could do was to provide some shore bases comforts now and then. To my surprise, the marina fees cost as less than tent sites in the same area would have. Part of the savings is from those special discounts, just because they like us.

-Sixbears