Can’t afford to live in a tent anymore

Ten years ago, my lovely wife and I used to travel around the country, living in a tent. Today I’ve come to the sad conclusion that we could not afford to do that today. Back then, we stayed in campgrounds a lot more than we do now. Mostly, we stayed in state parks and lower priced private campgrounds. Sometimes we stayed in more expensive campgrounds, but that was to experience special places.

Prices at campgrounds have risen. My income hasn’t. That’s it in a nutshell.

Sure, we could camp off in the woods in National Forests or stealth camp. That’s fine now and then, but having a few facilities are nice.

We have reservations in a couple campgrounds for the trip back, but it’s a tiny fraction of our time away from home. It won’t bust the budget.

Instead of campgrounds sometimes we stay with friends and family. Years ago, we occasionally crashed at other people’s houses, but not like now. This year we’ve spent a fair amount of time at my dad’s. He’s got a spare bedroom, place to park the truck and boat trailer, and even loaned us a car. We also make use of his park’s hot tub and swimming pools. Most importantly, I’ve been able to spend time doing things with dad. Even with helping pay dad’s expenses, it’s cheaper than tent sites.

The other thing we’ve been doing differently is spending time on the sailboat. That’s been a surprisingly economical thing to do. Take our last 4 day trip. We spent only one night in a marina, the other nights were at anchor. Anchoring is free. The marina we stayed at charged $1/foot. With our 19 foot boat that came to a reasonable $19/day. Few campsites in the area are that cheap, and none a nicer place to stay. Oh, yes, we did burn about 1/2 gallon of gas for the outboard.

In the future the only thing that makes economic sense is to spend most of our time on a sailboat.

-Sixbears

Solar Storms?

If this solar storm really does hit, most of my readers won’t be reading this blog post.

My guess is that most of you are still here -this time. It’s just a matter of time before we have a big enough storm to seriously shut down a good bit of our technology.

I actually took a few precautions for this event. Had I been home in in NH, I wouldn’t have to do anything at all. Independent power, water, septic, and food storage is normal everyday life there. At my dad’s trailer park, it’s different. Everything is on the grid here.

I pulled all the water jugs off my sailboat, refilled them, they stored them in my dad’s sun room. While on the boat, we gathered up all our storable food and brought them to the trailer. The vehicles are fueled up. Even my camp stove is full and ready to go. If the grid goes down, few stations will be able to pump gas.

One of the big things that happen when the grid goes down is that nobody knows what’s going on. So that doesn’t happen, I’ve a short wave radio stored in a metal ammo can. That should keep most of the EMP out.

With any luck, this is only a drill, but one never knows when disaster will strike.

-Sixbears

Back they go

One of the things that surprised me this Florida trip is the large number of retirees putting their places for sale and heading north. There seems to be three common reasons for doing so. For any individual person, more than one factor may be involved.

Being closer to family is a big one. Travel isn’t as easy and cheap as it once was. Fewer and fewer people are hopping on a plane for a quick visit with the kids. Those who drive are very aware of the rising price of gas. Being closer to family is winning out over sunshine and days on the golf course. The flip side is that the kids can’t afford a southern vacation anymore.

Ill health is a common reason. Frankly, some are going home to die.

Another reason is that their pensions can no longer support them. It doesn’t cost all that much to live in a trailer park in Florida, but even that low hurtle is too high. Social Security isn’t much to live on. Those living on investments have taken a bit hit. If they are lucky, they have kids or other family willing to take them in.

The phenomenon of retirees heading south has only really existed for a relatively short period of time. Historically, elders would live in extended family groups. For many, those days have returned.

-Sixbears

The price of sailing and independence

One of my daughters bought me a subscription to one of those glossy sailing magazines. I’ve enjoyed the gift and have even learned some useful sailing hints from it. Sailing is relatively new to me, so any source of information is greedily consumed.

The exotic locations and expensive boats are fun to read about, but 90% of the articles have little to do with the way I sail. The obvious difference is that most sailing in those magazines are done on a budget orders of magnitude bigger than mine. That’s fine. After all, if it wasn’t for those high priced advertisers none of those magazines could be published. That’s the nature of business, but it’s no wonder some of those articles appear to be little more than advertisements themselves.

I could never afford most of the things advertised, even simple things like anchor chain. My big heavy duty piece of chain (attached to a budget anchor) is something that fell off a logging truck.
Even if I could afford one of those big new boats, I have a lot of problems with them. Too many appear to be nearly impossible to fix or service without the full facilities of a good boatyard. High labor costs, combined with specialized parts make that a high dollar operation.

That bumps against one of the things I love about sailing: freedom. When we headed out from the dock recently, my lovely wife looked at the huge expanse of ocean all around us and said, “We could go anywhere!”

That’s the promise of a sailboat, the potential to go anywhere. Of course, there are practical considerations, but even in my tiny sailboat, many thousands of miles of the watery realm are open to us. Anywhere with water and wind is our domain.

Of course, that only works as long as the boat can be repaired and maintained. Go to any good sized boatyard and gaze upon a multitude of boats not going anywhere soon. Some are waiting for parts. Others are waiting their turn with some specialized equipment or highly trained expert. Some boats may be waiting for their owners to get the money together to do the work.

Is it any wonder that I’m attracted to those who build their own boats? The ones that really impress me are those who build the boat, then load all the tools into the boat. Any leftover fasteners, glues, paints, and materials also come along for the ride. They have the knowledge and equipment to completely rebuild a boat from the keel up. Imagine that level of independence. Imagine that level of freedom.

It’s not necessary to build your own boat, but being able to do most of your own work is a big plus. Having a boat without a lot of specialized parts is useful. Knowing how to repair a damaged hull, torn sail, or sick engine keeps a person on the water. It also keeps them out of the poor house.

Those slick magazines are nice, an enjoyable read, but don’t let them sucker you into buying a boat that won’t deliver on that freedom promise.

-Sixbears

North Anclote Bar

Three times I’ve sailed past this bit of land, and each time had to pass it by. It was either too dark or too windy. Finally, we arrived early enough to approach the island. Winds were from the south and mostly blocked by Anclote Key.

The beautiful thing about North Anclote Bar is that it doesn’t exist. On the navigation charts, it’s listed as shoaling -not an actual island. On the main key, there are rules. Dogs are not allowed. The state has rules about what goes on there. Locals tell me that the Bar appeared after a major storm one year. Apparently, the state hasn’t gotten around to acknowledging it. That’s the nature of things in Florida. Land appears and disappears after each major storm.

We approached it Thursday afternoon. On the east side of the island, the water was blue. On the west, it was bright green. We anchored close to shore and waded it. It’s a good place to swim and a terrific place to beach comb. Sea birds love this little bit of land. My lovely wife loved it as much as the sea birds.

Locals seem to be the main visitors. A little local knowledge helps getting in and out of the island. Don’t try this with a deep draft vessel. I made the mistake of anchoring on top of a narrow sandbar that dried out later that night. Twenty feet either way, and I’d have had plenty of water. We were grounded for a short while. I knew we were close to shore, but wanted to hug the island to stay out of the wind. Judged it a bit close. There was no harm done. As soon as a bit more water came in, I moved the anchor out slightly deeper.

It was a great place to stop -last bit of land before we crossed the open Gulf of Mexico. When we bought a sailboat, this is the sort of thing I imagined doing with it.

-Sixbears

Open Sesame!

There’s something very satisfying about waking up on a boat right where you anchored the night before. As we slept, the wind had shifted to a more northernly direction. Our large Danforth anchor never budged.

Due to the wild sail the night before, we were very close to our destination. It was just a short trip through the bridge and up the channel to Calidesi State Park Marina. Since the winds were unfavorable, we motored.

Brownie the Sailor Dog was very interested in the whole draw bridge operation.

I still get a kick out of having bridges open for me.

We had a mellow day at the park. My lovely wife went swimming at the beach.

I found a nice swinging bench in the shade in which to read. All in all, a very pleasant day.

My wife had an encounter with a very large rattle stake -right next to the “Caution, this island has rattle snakes” sign. She noticed it, gave it plenty of room, and warned other people. The snake relaxed and disappeared in the underbrush. Later that day, we noticed the park people had cut the brush further back away from the trail.

We know from Genesis that Paradise has a snake -that doesn’t stop it from being Paradise.

Calidesi is one of our new favorite places.

-Sixbears

Wandering Sailors

We are back from another successful sailing trip. I’ve no idea what’s going on in the world right now, and I’m not particularly bothered by that. A sailboat is a world of its own.

My lovely wife left Bayport around 10:45 a. m.. on Tuesday. All our stuff was finally loaded and the boat set up and launched.

We knew we could not reach our destination before dark, but we were comfortable with that idea. The boat has lights, so why not use them?

The sail in the open Gulf was pleasant, but not fast. Mostly we poked around 2 - 3 knots with the occasional burst of 4 knots. Our goal was to anchor off of Anclote Key. It’s not the best anchorage -little protection from east winds. We did anchor there before, so we knew what we were getting into.

After the sun went down, the wind picked up -strong and from the east. We reduced sail and still moved along at near hull speed. Just to make things interesting, we wandered in the shallows, dragging the rudder in the mud. No problem. All I have to do is pull a slip knot and the cord that holds the rudder down is loosened, allowing the rudder to kick up.

Normally, it’s an easy, uneventful procedure. Normally. For some reason, the cord hooked the ring pin that secured the backstay pin and sent it flying. There was nothing to keep the pin from falling out. Had that pin fallen out, the backstay would come down and the mast with it. At hull speed. In rough seas. At night.

Fortunately, I had a hitch pin in my shirt pocket and jammed it into the pin, saving the backstay, and the rest of the rigging.

The rest of the night sail was busy and wet, but with the exception of the pin incident, we never felt in any sort of danger. I knew there were some spoil islands down the channel that we could anchor behind, out of the wind.

We were very happy to have this patch of ground blocking the heavy winds. I dropped the anchor, 12 hours and 42 miles later. We slept well that night.

-Sixbears.