Cruising Mindset

Cruising is not just the act of taking long trips on your yacht, it is an entire mindset that becomes you as you cruise. 

Maddie and I have cut the dock lines to society and set off as full time cruisers. We have no schedule, no itinerary, no nothing! We simply pick a place and start heading there. We get there when we get there is a good way to sum it all up. 

When we had taken "extended vacations" before that we called cruising, we had a set amount of time available to us. We had a destination in mind and a return date already set. Everyday that we weren't heading towards our destination was a day lost, because we did have to turn around at some point to return to work. 

While the trips were relaxing, they were still speckled with stress. If the winds were not right, or we didn't get far enough on a day, we felt like we might not actually get to our destination and we would be forced to turn around by our jobs. 

Now, we don't worry about these sorts of things. We wake up when we wake up, raise anchor when we feel like it, and sail until we decide to stop for the day! 

We were anchored in Harness Creek in South River when we decided to visit a little town called Easton. This town is located far up a river and was rather far for us by sail. We didn't care and we set off towards this new destination.  

After three days of sailing, we were nearing this town on the river and were only 0.3 nautical miles from the place we want to anchor for a while when we ran aground. 

Running aground is never a fun time, but the truth is it isn't that bad for us.  Wisdom, our sailboat, has a full keel. Running aground simply means that we are sitting on the bottom of the river with no worry about damage to our undersides. 

We checked the tide table and found that it was nearly low tide, and the tide was going out. We tried to heel over with the sails, kedge off, even be pulled off by the assistance of a passing powerboat. Alas, the tide had gone out too fast and our waterline was about 6 inches higher than normal. Our keel was stuck in the mud and our only hope was to wait for high tide to lift us off. 

The tide would take a few hours to come back up, and instead of stressing our situation, we simply got out some cheese and a game to eat and play in the cockpit while we waited. 

That is the true sense of cruising. Time no longer matters, as you simply take each day as it comes and each moment as it presents itself. There is no worry about deadlines nor schedules, as we are merely sailing along as best we can in the direction of our next destination. 

Blister Repair

Osmotic blisters may be the bane of a fiberglass hull, but it is a small problem that has been blown way out of proportion. The truth is, all hulls suffer form some form of degradation: wood hulls rot and get worms, fiberglass hulls get blisters, steel hulls rust, and aluminum hulls disappear by galvanic corrosion. You simply need to choose a hull material that you feel comfortable repairing yourself.

Blisters are caused by the osmotic pressure of water that passes through the layers of fiberglass and exposes areas of delamination. When the hull is lifted from the water, these areas will bulge out like lumps. When you crack them open, water will pour out with intense pressure. 

Fixing blisters can be a very costly endevour if you pay to have someone else do it, but they are actually very easy to fix yourself. You only need a grinder and an sander. 

Using a grinder, you can rip through the blister, tearing out all the delaminates fiberglass that is overtop. Then you can begin to tear out laterally, as you follow the damage from the blister. As you work, the affected area will be wet and have a slight brown color to it. You simply want to grind away until you no longer see any brown or wet, and you can't even see where the different layers are of the hull. 

At this point you will have a gaping hole in the side of your boat. This may seem like a major problem, but it is easy to fix. 

If the blister is not too deep, the repair is very straight forward. If the blister is rather deep, then you simply need to take a few extra steps to fix it. Neither of these two methods are difficult, and both can be done in a few minutes. 

If the blister is shallow, and not passing through many layers of the hull, you can simply fill the hole with thickened epoxy. How deep is too deep for just epoxy is dependent on the hull itself. If you have a 1/4 inch deep hole on a 1/2 inch thick hull, you have just compromised 50% of the hull in a blister! Yet, if the hull is inches thick, this is a small surface scratch that is inconsequential to the total structural integrity of the hull. 

In my case, the hull in this area is 1.5 inches thick, and the blister was 1.4 inch deep. This comes out to be 1/6th the hull thickness, so I simply repaired it with thickened epoxy. 

Regular West System Epoxy can be mixed well, then 406 thickening agent can be added until the entire mixture looks like thick peanut butter. This thick mass can then be stuffed into the hole and wiped over with a plastic spatula. The spatula will contour the blisters surface to be flush with the hull, taking all the work out of fairing the repair job! It is just that easy, simply smear it in and smooth it off! 

If th blister is deep, you can wet the area with untickened West System Epoxy, and then add some chop strand mat to the hole. This will provide new fibers that will add in the structural integrity of the entire repair. Over this layer, you can then add more unthickened epoxy to fully wet the strands of fiberglass. When they are all wet, you then proceed with the thickens epoxy just like before. Simply smear it in and scrape it smooth! 

Blisters may be an eyesore, but they are more an annoyance than anything else. Small blisters will not sink your boat, only it's resale value! Keeping your boat out of the water through winter allows the hull to dry out well and reduce the incidence of blisters as well. If you live aboard though, your boat will always be int eh water and blisters will become a fact of life when you haul out. 

You can choose to ignore them until they get big, or you can choose to repair each and every one of them as they occur. Which ever way you choose to go with, just keep in mind that blisters are not a death sentence to a fiberglass hull, simply an annoyance you get in response to your relaxed maintenance schedule of haul outs. 

Saying "See You Later"

The hardest thing about going cruising is not finding the right boat or making it fit your needs, no the hardest part is saying goodbye.

When you find your dreamboat and move aboard, you will be surrounded by other liveaboards in the marina. Liveaboards can be rather "interesting" people, but you will be too.

Getting a boat prepared will take time, and all the while you will be making friends with your fellow boating neighbors. It took me 5 years to transform an old blue water capable boat into a blue water cruiser. Over these 5 years I have made some very good friends. I would easily say that these friends are the best friends I have ever had, and that makes this the hardest part of all.

When you untie the lines, you will set off on your journey over the horizon. This also means that you will not see your friends anymore because you will be away.

We haven't untied the lines yet and we have already made plans to meet up with our friends in different places as we sail along, but visiting with them is very different from living near them.

Ben and Kate, one of our closest friends, live a few piers away from us. We will regularly just go knock on their hull unannounced, as do they, to go grab some food. Maddie works odd hours as a painting instructor, and Kate also works odd hours as a flight nurse. If either Ben or I are alone, we will go see what the other couple is up to and just hang out.

Once we are cruising though, we will give up this luxury. The only way we can meet up with them will be to schedule and plan ahead. This transforms the dynamic from spontaneous to planned.

This, in my opinion is the hardest thing about casting off to go cruising. While we are aware that we won't see them as regularly or as often, we are aware that we will come across many new people as we cruise, offering a glimmer of light in the darkness of the unknown that lays before us.

Debt Cycle

Our modern society lives on and for debt. If you have debt, you are more likely to conform to the norms of society and you are viewed as a normal person. Debt will ensure that you will show up to work on time, and that you will work hard for the promise of payment. You will also buy things that you need to work, in order to pay your debt. The best part of this is you will buy these things with debt.

That's right, you will go to work to pay for your debt, and you will make more debt to pay off your existing debt.

When I worked as a dentist full time, I would listen to the things my patients would say. I would see these people twice a year, but the stories they would say all melted together as they were all the same story. They would buy a car to get to work with debt. They would get excited when the car was nearly paid off because they wouldn't have a car payment anymore! Then they would come into their next appointment in a new car because they traded in their paid car for a new one with debt. Over and over the cycle repeated itself.

The car was just a toy to the bankers, who have these people on the hook for hundreds of thousands of dollars with the houses they financed. These people have to work every day to pay their mortgage, precluding them from ever taking a long vacation, one which would allow them to realize what happiness really is.

I myself was caught up in this rat race as well. I had graduated from dental school with a significant amount of student debt. Each month, I had to pay a little over $2,000 in student loan payments. Then I bought a new car to get to work, which added on another $400 a month. I needed somewhere to live, luckily it was an old boat that I was able to pay for and not owe for the rest of my life, but the slip fee was still $500 a month. This means that if I stayed home, I had to pay $2,500 a month. If I wanted to get to work, I would need that car and it would cost me.

The first $2,900 I made each month was already spent. This may sound dismal, but the fun is only starting! I worked for this money which means that the tax man needs his cut of it. Between state and federal taxes, I was paying nearly 40% of my income in taxes. The $2,900 that I had to earn to pay these simple payments would cost me another $1,160 a month in taxes.

At this rate, my first $4,060 was already spent! I haven't even gone out to buy groceries yet, but I've managed to spend $4,000 a month. Believe me, this was a huge motivator to not take vacations! When Maddie and I would go on our month long cruising adventures, I would save up not for the trip, but for all the bills I would have to pay while not working.

Going to work each day cost me $48,720. This is a deep hole to dig myself out of, and it was not that deep of a hole compared to other people I know. I chose to live on a 50 year old boat, so it was very inexpensive to purchase. Those who live in McMansions are far deeper in a hole then I am. They are also tied in to additional taxes as they are subject to state and county property taxes.

I remember in school being told that it is a good idea to have a mortgage because you can deduct the interest on your income tax form. I couldn't understand why that was good, because you still had to pay a monthly payment with interest! The system is setup very well to keep us from seeing what it really is and who it serves.

Maddie and I are ducking out from the rat race and instead following a the path less traveled. Both of us have stopped working, which greatly reduced our income levels and the associated taxes that go with them. We have saved up some money and will be living on a very strict budget that may seem ridiculously low to most, but still rather high in our opinion. Following this plan we will slip out from society and explore the world on a shoestring budget where we don't have bills or monthly payments due.

This ducking out was not easy. The whole world is setup to make sure that you feel crazy to do such a thing! We had to get rid of our cars, and stop going to work. This took out the car payment, but it didn't get rid of the student debt.

Luckily, there are student loan refinance options which base the payment on your income, and if your income is low enough, you don't have to pay. There is no free lunch, and interest will continue to grow, but we will kick that can down the road and see where it leads.

With the student loan payments cut down to $0 and the car payment gone, all of a sudden, we don't need to get up in the morning to rush to work! There is no monthly quota of $4,000 coming due, and instead we can focus on being happy and exploring the world.

The first day felt really weird. I got up early in the morning but didn't have to go to work. Instead, I worked on the boat to get it ready for our trip. This continued for a few days, until I would wake up in the morning ready to work on the boat and not even thinking about going to work. After the first week, I began to forget what day of the week it was because it didn't matter any more. I stopped dreading Monday and didn't care if it was Friday, because everyday was about doing what we wanted to get done that day. We would set goals for each day, and strive to complete the goals early in the day so we could have the rest of the day to do whatever else we wanted to do.

After 2 weeks of this, something clicked in my mind. Now I can't fathom how I used to run the rat race! I was always tired because I didn't have enough time to sleep at night. I used to get up at 530am and get home at 9pm. Somehow I would squeeze in a few projects at night on the boat and get to sleep around 11pm. I was exhausted but I knew no different. To me that was life, now I understand that my old life was crazy!

I see why corporations only give you 2 weeks of vacation per year. If you know you have to return to work, you will start gearing up for it in your mind and you won't slip out of the system. In my case, at the 2 week point, it clicked how ridiculous the entire system is and it made the choice to stop going with he flow all the easier.

Now Maddie and I work on the boat as we prepare to go cruising full time. We will work odd jobs, rigging jobs, teaching jobs, or dental jobs as we go, working for a few days or weeks and living in a vacation instead of the other way around.

Countdown to Castoff

We are planning to cast off in a few days now, and all of a sudden, a rush of clarity has come to light. When we first decided that we would go on this voyage, we made lists of all the things that need to be accomplished for us to go. The lists were long and I worked all through the winter to complete each task.

As we have been getting closer to our departure date, the list has gotten even shorter via a different method: we have been removing "needed" items from the list. This has dramatically shortened the list until we reached a point when the list was gone. I do not remember scratching off the last line item, and I don't recall us discussing the removal of the last line item. Sadly, I can't even tell you what the last line item was! All I know is that it is gone and we are going cruising.

This clarity that has overcome both Maddie and me, is the clarity that there should have never been a list from the beginning. As we sail, we will pick things up as well as discard unneeded items. We will, in effect, prepare for the journey as we progress through it!

Yes, there are obvious safety items that you should carry on board before a long voyage: life raft, EPIRB, and updated charts of the waters you will be cruising are the first that come to mind, and were also the first on the list while the list still existed.

The truth is, even if we had infinite time and managed to cross off every line item on the list in preparation for our voyage, we would still be grossly unprepared for it.

Packing to go cruising is like moving into a new apartment. There are two ways of doing it:

Option 1 is to go to a store and buy anything and everything that you think you will need. In this method, you are only allowed to go to the store once, and never again. If you don't buy it right now, you will never have that necessary item that you might need for your daily life! Sounds kind of scary to do it this way; what if you forget something, how will you do without? Worst of all, you haven't even seen your apartment yet, so you are merely guessing at what you will be needing to fill it and make it a home.

Option 2 is to move into your new apartment with the bare essentials: a bed, toothbrush, and some food for the next few days. As you need things, you can simply go out and pick up what you need in small trips. Now moving in doesn't sound so scary, you get there, figure out what you need, and then go get it as you need it!

Most people view preparing for cruising as Option 1. They will fully load their vessel with everything they can possibly imagine needing. This will be very expensive and also wasteful. Buying everything up front is a tough bill to confront. Worse yet, if you buy something because you think you might need it and end up never using it, you technically just wasted all that money!

We started out with the mindset of Option 1, but as the departure date got closer, we slowly switched over to Option 2. Option 2 is a very doable option. As you cruise, you will discover things that you are missing. When these discoveries are made, you simply write them down in a list. The list will grow as you sail along until you hit a port where you can make all of these purchases. The list becomes very handy when shopping because it avoids impulse buying. If it is not on the list, you don't buy it! You will also find that as you sail along, you will scratch things off the list before you have the opportunity to purchase them because you will realize that you can get by without buying.

All of these viewpoints will help you get cruising sooner and cheaper!

The most important item not to pack when you first cast off is food. I have made the mistake several times of buying a whole lot of food right before we cast off because we will need it! The truth is, people eat everywhere, so you will never be far from a grocery store. All the fresh food I bought will spoil, and the canned foods will last us months after we return from the trip.

The right way to pack food is to untie your docklines and head out. Don't stock up on anything, simply get going! As you sail along, you can stop at any port and pick up the food that you need once you are already cruising.

An important point to make though is that you should never cast off and instantly go on a long distance voyage. It is best to slop around the coast for a bit, getting you acquainted with what you like to cook and eat while cruising. Then you can make a list of what you want for the upcoming long leg in your voyage and pack accordingly.

Maddie and I are setting off for a very long voyage in a few days, and we have merely stopped preparing the boat in preparation for the voyage. We will unite the lines and shove off on our adventure. We plan to spend 3 months cruising the Chesapeake Bay, which is riddled with towns along the water to re-provision as we go until we do our first long leg to Bermuda.