2025 Financial Wrap-Up – Red Shanks Georgetown, The Bahamas, January 5, 2026 LP

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2025 Financial Wrap-Up – Red Shanks Georgetown, The Bahamas, January 5, 2026

First off, it has been another great and eventful year (shocker, right?). We started by flying to the west coast to pick up the RV and save her from the wildfires, only about 5 miles from her. Then we drove it down to Key West and low and behold, bought another boat. Having spent a good chunk of our time there in February refitting and re-rigging, we headed back to the Bahamas to spend the rest of the season. Our insurance will not let us go any farther south then the central Bahamas, but it worked out fine.

After heading home from the Bahamas, we had some items to fix and had to have her hauled out. Unfortunately, we could not get into Brunswick, GA so we ended up hauling her out in a fancy boatyard in Savannah, GA instead. It worked out fine, but I was glad we had the RV to stay in at a nearby campground. We visited family and hiked around the east coast for the next few months. When we were in Columbus visiting kids, we moved our storage unit and downsized it again. Specifically, we made the choice to sell our Harley-Davidson, which we took across country a few years ago. It was simply sitting rusting and seemed silly to continue to pay for storage when we rarely rode it and now paid for 6-8 months of storage on the RV. So, we bit the bullet and sold her.

Once we wrapped up the storage unit, visited family in Brunswick again, we packed everything up and headed to Savannah. We spent 3 weeks there fixing water leaking through our windows and then sail drive. Once we got her all set and back in the water we started our sail south, stopped in Jekyll Island, then headed down to cross back to the Bahamas via Fort Pierce by November. It has been calm since then and we have got to enjoy the nice sunny Bahamas weather. So, all this begs the question – How did we once again afford all this fun?

Let’s start with our income. Ron and I still make money through our investments, which includes dividends, interest, etc. This was our highest earning category this year. Secondly, was Ron consulting gig. New this year was the income we got from selling the motorcycle. The last category was a fraction but included everything else.

Our income remained close to what it was last year, but what happened to our spending! Holy smokes we spent a lot! Let’s take a look at the chart and I’ll walk you through it.

So, let’s break it down:

First off, the boat refit was our largest expense by far. This included the rigging and all the water fixes we completed. Our boat budget increased by 34%. Ouch and I am glad we hopefully won’t have to do this again this year.
Restaurants were another big one but since we had the RV we have & boat kitchens we have cooked a lot more. Both of these lowered our restaurant budget nicely.
Travel is fees we end up paying to get onto Jekyll Island when we go, toll road costs, and airlines (which we didn’t go anywhere this year!) so this was down compared to last year.
Our next big one was groceries since that includes all our food not only from this past year and our cruising season but also most of our food till June. We still buy fresh stuff like bread and vegetables but little else our increased budget here is more for 18 months vs. 12.
The dreaded taxes but it must be done
Knowing what we spent on the boat refit we made a specific effort not to spend much money during the off season on the RV and stuck mostly to camp sites with a lot of free hiking.
Gas/Diesel – this was for both the boat & RV for the year and roughly doubled from last year since we didn’t have the boat for long.
Insurance is for everything including the RV, Boat, motorcycle, and our umbrella. Our insurance was also less since we didn’t have it at the beginning of the year and went with a less expensive provider policy. Not too bad since it is fairly cheap for the boat if we don’t leave the Bahamas.
Automotive is for our rental cars anytime we needed one and this was about the same.
Telephone & Starlink were for our necessary communications on the boat and RV and stayed about the same.
Our 2025 boat season includes our customs and immigration fees (which increased from January-June 2025 until November-December 2025 when we came back). It also includes any other misc. expenses that don’t fall into groceries, restaurants, diesel, etc. For example, our Junkanoo Tickets, which we recently attended, and the tickets were $20 each.
Dockage, “Everything else”, and healthcare were consistent with last year, but RV maintenance did go up. We spent a bit of money replacing our clothing & shoes before leaving this year but thankfully no hurricane expenses!

All in all, we used our reduced living expenses to offset our boat refit expenses. It is so nice to have the flexibility to do that. The good news is we are fully stocked for at least a few more months if not for the rest of the season so our living expenses will be very minimal till it’s time to bring the boat back and put her up for storage again. It’s good to be an early retirement nerd!

All Black and White – Exuma Islands, Bahamas, May 1, 2025

Posted on May 1, 2025 by Sally

All Black and White – Exuma Islands, Bahamas, May 1, 2025

It seems the world is full of uncertainty these days. With the stock markets falling, wars in not only Ukraine but also Gaza embroiled in multi-year conflicts, and the US alienating nearly all the rest of the world. Here in the Bahamas on Mariposa, it is much more certain. We have been sitting at our new favorite anchorage between Black Point and White Point. The water is clear and beautiful blue. We paddle each day watching the turtles swim by us. Snorkeling is cold but at least we see some nice coral and fish. There is only one large barracuda that has been a bit of a nuisance. There are even sharks that swim by in the evenings during happy hour looking for a snack. I have to say it is lovely here and we could not be happier we made the jump back to boating life and the Bahamas.

It has been a quiet few weeks and we have had some much-needed time to chill and recover from the big push getting the boat ready to go. We spent one day in Staniel Cay refueling, grocery shopping, and hob-knobbing with the rich. You see Staniel Cay is where all the super yachts (50 feet+) live. Easter week was very busy for them. At any time, we have between 15-20 of these big guys parked near us. Just for fun we looked up what it would cost to rent one of these for the week and WOW – it is how the other half live. It costs approximately $250,000 per week for 12 guests and 11 crew members plus expenses. These yachts have jet skis, a large dinghy, their own floating dock, completed by a blow-up slide. It’s incredible! I realize we are on the brink of a recession but there are still plenty of people out there that have too much money.

Sadly, they all want to go and swim with the pigs at Big Majors Pig Beach. This I will never understand, but there are boats packed with tourists lined up to drop folks off there. Average cost for this tour is $150-$250 person. Then, you get to discover that there is a lot of piggie poop and invasive birds attacking you for their share of the pig food. No thanks.

As the wind here is about to change, we will make one last stop at Staniel Cay for our last stock up, to take care of our trash, and then plan to move north to Cambridge Cay. We will have about 6 weeks to make it north and back to the states where we have a spot in Savannah, GA to haul out for hurricane season. The wind will be shifting from the south and sadly our place here off the coast has little protection for that. It is time to say goodbye to our lovely anchorage at least until next year.

Waiting on Weather – Wardrick Wells, Exuma Islands Bahamas, April 12, 2025

Posted on April 14, 2025 by Sally

Waiting on Weather – Wardrick Wells, Exuma Islands Bahamas, April 12, 2025

Simply put, the last 2 weeks have left us doing a lot of waiting. We took the first window available to make the crossing and then the southern winds took over. There have been 5 days sitting in Royal Island and then another 7 days waiting in Hatchet Bay. These are the two most protected places. And the weather did not disappoint, since we had a major storm and 35% of the boats in Hatchet Bay drug. Once again, we were up at 4am hoping not to get hit since two of the boats who drug anchor were next to us. Ron did amazing job of seeing these storms coming. We were there days before they hit, our anchor was set, and then like clockwork we got a slew of new boats who came into the bay an hour before dark and plopped the anchor 50 feet in front of us. All inexperienced cruisers from Georgetown. It is one of our least favorite parts of cruising.

Clear the cut and find a place to drop the hook.

After one beautiful night near Rock Sound, we had a chance to cross the Exuma Sound and now sit in one of our favorite places – Exuma Land and Sea Park. It is an extremely protected little bay and one of the most beautiful places on earth. It makes the last two weeks’ worth the wait. On our first snorkeling adventure we were quickly reminded how ripping the current is! In these types of conditions, we typically tow the dinghy with us. The Bahamas is known for their wild currents between the islands and this place is that on steroids. In the evenings though we can sit and watch the turtles and rays swim by the boat. It is incredible.

Hiking here is also a plus. This small park has a few hills and stunning white sand beaches, so we felt the need to go back to Booboo Hill!

The next day was my birthday so we took a nice long snorkel with the turtles! It was nice to relax here but the rolly overnights and close calls with the charter boats trying to fit through the narrow channel of mooring balls made that our last day here. We are heading south while the winds are calm to Pipe Cay. It’s nice to be somewhere warm and lovely!

The Crossing – The Berry Islands, Bahamas, March 24, 2025

Posted on March 26, 2025 by Sally

The Crossing – The Berry Islands, Bahamas, March 24, 2025

Now that we are officially offshore, the rigging and solar are working great. The main was raised and functioning perfectly. As I mentioned in our last post, this is the second longest passage we have made and our first one on this untested boat. It has been 32 hours and 198 miles across the Gulf Stream and onto the Grand Bahama Bank. We took the southern route this time, which is new to us, and ended up in The Berry Islands. We have never been here either and were keen to try it out. We heard that it is very shallow on this route and the Berry’s, specifically. They were not kidding.

As we exited the Gulf Stream onto the Bahamas Bank, there were times we only had about 2-3 feet under the keel. Leaving about 8:00am from Marathon, Florida and we approached the bank after dark so we could approach the Berry’s and get ourselves anchored by sunset in Great Harbor Cay on the east side of the largest Berry island. This meant that it was Ron’s shift once we started the bank to ensure all was well before I took back over. It was the smoothest trip across the Gulf Stream we have made yet. Whew! It’s nice to be back.

Great Harbor Cay is a port of entry, and it was necessary for us to make a stop to check into customs. They were very pleasant and efficient. The trick is to go to the marina here, which is through a very narrow cut. It was good to know, in case of any weather events, that is one of the most protected harbors in the Bahamas.

We could have stayed here but, after checking in, we moved over to the east side of the island to stage for some incoming westerly winds. The winds here tend to make the anchorage outside of the harbor a bit on the rocky side. The water temperature here is still a bit cold, and we are hoping to move a bit farther south so we can do some snorkeling. The next hop will be over to Eleuthera, which is a short 60-mile jump. They are expecting the wind to come in the next couple of days, making The Berry’s uncomfortable to stay.

Since we won’t have much time here, hopefully we can keep this on our list to hit once we come back through here in June. At that point it should be warm enough to do some exploration on these beautiful little islands. Even though it is already so late in the cruising season, there should still be enough time to stop in here before making the jump back over to Brunswick Georgia for the start of hurricane season. These islands are stunningly beautiful and made the crossing worthwhile.

On our first cruising season there was one of the many cruisers we met who said, “this is the most beautiful place. You’ll be back, even if only for the water.” After sailing all the way down to Grenada…they were right. The only other place that holds a candle to this place is Hawaii. It’s good to be back to the Bahamas!

Sailing the Thorny Path – En Route to Luperon, Dominican Republic, January 11, 2023

Posted on January 13, 2023 by Sally

Sailing the Thorny Path – En Route to Luperon, Dominican Republic, January 11, 2023

We left the Bahamas via George Town, north of Long Island, sailed north of Rum Cay, passing San Salvador, and are currently passing north of the Turks and Caicos in route to Luperon, Dominican Republic. A sailor’s plan is always drawn in sand, ready to change at a moments notice, and ours certainly has since Puerto Rico is no longer the goal. How has the sail been you ask? Well…let me explain our change in plans. We started out at dawn on Monday, and it was choppy. I mean we motored into 20 knot winds kind of choppy.

The weather predicted this to change so we only had to endure this for today so to distract ourselves, Sailing hubby put out a fishing pole to see if he could catch something when we left the Land and Sea Park. A couple hours later we heard a large BANG. Thinking something on the rigging had broken, Ron checks over everything and it’s OK. We discovered, a large fish had taken all of his line and actually broken it off the pole. Well, I guess we are done fishing.

Meanwhile, the weather hasn’t changed except to say that now the swell is worse and it is all on our beam making the boat in a state where you cannot stand up if you are not hanging onto something. Boiling water for coffee is out of the question.

Then strike two was after the boat banged around like crazy, the first night it finally broke the latch on one of my kitchen cupboards causing everything in it to fall out and shatter. I was scared, now awake (in bare feet) to a bouncing boat, and now there is shattered glass EVERYWHERE. Ron was on watch so I cleaned it up as best I could and fixed the cupboard. Apparently our standards of “fixing” are on a different page.

We made it through the night and most of the next day was squalls (aka storms). This means it’s all hands-on deck since we need to reef the sails and the other person is at the helm steering and controlling the speed. We did that roughly 4-5 times so no one slept during the day. It is also a bit dangerous with the boat bouncing so much and Ron having the clip in to go to the front of the boat. We wear life jackets when outside at any time and are clipped in, in case we fall off. They are heavy and uncomfortable but necessary. So, Ron took the first night shift til about 10 and then I took the graveyard shift. It wasn’t until then that all hell broke loose…except not on our boat. Strike three was we had our main sail down, and since our jib was inverted, we barely got that furled in before the winds picked up to 25 knots and the rain started again. Our buddy boat was not so lucky.

We had decided to take this journey with a boat we travelled a lot with last season, Caribbean Dream. They are experienced sailors and have sailed to Puerto Rico before. They sail a 45’ monohaul, (honestly, I cannot remember which kind – Hunter maybe?) and the captain is an engineer and pilot.

On this stormy night, Caribbean Dream had also gotten down the main sail, however when trying to furl their jib, the rigging broke and it was now flailing in the 25 knot winds. The captain had to go up to the front of their horribly rolling boat, in the rain, 25 knot winds, to try and tie down the sail before it got worse! The first mate was at their helm talking to Ron, panicking, trying to figure out how to help beside slowing the boat down. Ron is talking her and helping keep her calm, and after a terrifying scene, he was able to secure their sail, stay on the boat, and get back to the helm. Whew!

The two captains have had very little sleep after the squalls all day and after nearly loosing his life trying to get the sails down, they were both ready for a few hours rest. The two first mates took the helm for the graveyard shift but now we had some decisions to make. The weather had not improved, we had expected to make 5.5 knots and due to the wind were going slower than that, which meant it was unlikely we would make Puerto Rico within our weather window. With still 3 days to go, and now Caribbean Dream was limping badly with no head sail, I had been half seasick (thank you 6-8 foot sea swell) even with Bonine (even Ron was taking it now), and our captains were exhausted. It was time to call it and start taking about where to divert. This is why we had planned bail out routes ahead of time.

It now looks like we will not make it to Puerto Rice but have a marina chosen in the Dominica Republic where we will stop which is pretty reputable. There, we can lick our wounds, get a glass of rum or El Presedente, Fix Caribbean Dream’s sail, refuel, and start to look for the next weather window for the jump to Puerto Rice. Planning Plan B in advance is always a good idea rather than when you are exhausted, the last thing is to start this process from scratch. Dominican…here we come. At least we celebrated surviving the night a cracked open a bag of Funyuns. Breakfast of champions :)!

2022 Sailing Finances – Calabash Bay, Long Island, Bahamas, December 30, 2022

Posted on December 30, 2022 by Sally

2022 Sailing Finances – Calabash Bay, Long Island, Bahamas, December 30, 2022

We motored up to spend a few days in Calabash Bay which was one of the most beautiful places for clear water we saw last year. We managed to go snorkeling when we got there and walk the beach the next morning, but sadly, the surge was so bad, we decided to head back south to try and get some protection from the wind and surge.

Since we have another travel day, I am a finance nerd, and I have been doing sort of a 2022 wrap up it got me thinking about where our money went this year. We were fortunate to have Sailing Hubby’s consulting, our investments/savings, and a few other small miscellaneous sources for income. So, in the end – where did it all go? I thought it would be easy to show it chart style.

What exactly do these categories all mean? Here goes:

Boat Maintenance 17% – self explanatory but this is all the upgrades, spare parts, our new sail drives, all the canvas materials we bought, anything we spent to get the boat ready to sail or fix stuff that broke.
Restaurants 14% – Sad this is category #2 but we ate out a lot in the off season since we didn’t always have a kitchen.
Travel 12% – this was mainly all the hotels, ubers, etc. from our motorcycle trip but also included hotels we rented when we stayed in Columbus to visit family.
Rent 12% – Airbnb’s we rented for all the time we spent in St. Augustine working on the boat. I do believe some of this generated ROI for Ron doing all the boat projects and we saved a lot by not having the boat yard so them for us.
Groceries 10% – this one surprised me a bit being so low on the chart but it only includes the provisioning from this season since last season was on 2021’s budget.
Everything Else 9% – this was my catch all category for everything that was less than 4% which includes our healthcare, any marina dockage, our cell phone, the new ipads we bought before we left, upgrades we made to the motorcycle for our trip (new brakes, etc.), our mail service, blah blah blah….
Boat Storage 8% – a necessary evil but we had to store it somewhere during the hurricane season.
Automotive 7% – another surprise but I was really hoping this would be less than 10% and it is. What a relief that this is the way to go since I can’t imagine Ron trying to maintain a car too.
Gas & Diesel 5% – Fantastic news with gas prices being as high as they were and as much driving as we did either via car to Columbus or out west on the motorcycle. This category is not only for our land travels but includes gas for the dinghy and diesel for motoring the boat.
Insurance 4% – not in this category is healthcare but this is car insurance for daughter #4, us, and our coverage for the boat. We already know this is going up this year since we need additional insurance to go farther than the Bahamas.

As we look at the plans and changes we have coming for next year, this will certainly be a part of it. There were some things that surprised me and some that didn’t. Either way, personal capital is the tool we have relied on to help us track all of our retirement stuff and it has been awesome. Definitely plan to keep using it!

When Nothing Works – Lanyard Cay, Bahamas, November 26, 2022

Posted on November 27, 2022 by Sally

When Nothing Works – Lanyard Cay, Bahamas, November 26, 2022

We finished up a few days in Hopetown and were able to fix our starter battery issue which was great! So, when the weather cleared, we were ready to get away from all the charter boats in Hopetown and anchor out for a few days. Being a holiday week, everyone who thought about sailing drops $20K and rents a boat they have no idea how to drive! It isn’t that big a deal except they ended up mooring right next to us and with 30+ MPH winds, the fact they don’t tie up correctly is a bit scary. But we made it out alive and the boat unscathed. Ron ended up having to go over and help one of them moore since they simply couldn’t get it. EEK!

Anyway, we spent Thanksgiving in Pelican Cay which is a protected reef and a place we had not been before and decided to snokel. The current was no joke and we had about 4-foot rolling waves. A good workout indeed! It was amazing and one of the best reefs we have seen together. The visibility wasn’t great but the coral life there was very healthy, and we saw huge starfish, huge spotted eagle rays, a few turtles and a rare school of cuddlefish! It was a bit cold but well worth going. We also headed back to “the bight” which is a shallow area full of sting rays and turbo turtles. They are called turbo turtles because as soon as they see you they dart off faster then any turtle should be able to swim. The “bight” is also home of numerous blue holes. These are basically sink holes that open up and are extremely deep so you can not see the bottom. Some even open to the ocean and can have weird currents flowing around them depending upon the tide so care must be taken not to get sucked into them.

We were thinking about heading down to Eleuthera in the next few days but decided to wait til Monday. In the meantime, we needed to make some water and that is when the wheels fell off the bus…the generator was first.

Ron ended up replacing the pull cord again, taking it apart and cleaning everything with brake cleaner since he ran out of carburetor cleaner the last time he fixed it. No sooner had he got that running (an hour later) …then the water maker quit. So, Sailing Hubby has a bit of a temper when he fixes the same thing multiple times, but our generator was left up front and it is all rusted and barely running. This has come to the top of the replacement list. Besides, I learned a few new cuss words today as he was threatening to toss the generator in the ocean. He’s very creative in his rants. I’ll chalk that one up to life skills. Poor guy.

After fixing everything he touched, replacing the impeller on the water maker, he finally got all the pieces working at the same time only to discover the generator was no longer generating any power even when it ran. I’m not sure why he was afraid he’d be bored this morning. Living on a boat certainly makes you appreciate you water and power!

We decided to relax and watch the OSU Game, however that required a bit of work on the fire-stick. I’m sad after watching my buckeyes get beat by Michigan and now all that’s left is to visit Pete’s Pub. I think Hubby has earned his beer after this morning. Pete’s is a legendary art gallery and pub combination (more than one way to get visitors) although I am not sure why as it was a bit underwhelming. The art is cool though and all bronze sculpture and made into everything from coffee tables, statues, to jewelry. So we had a couple token beers collected a million insect bites and headed home. Heading home at dusk into the 4 foot swells that ran across the bay topped off an adventurous day.

Can You Hear the Jimmy Buffet? – November 17, 2022, En Route to Green Turtle Cay, Bahamas

Posted on November 17, 2022 by Sally

Can You Hear the Jimmy Buffet? – November 17, 2022, En Route to Green Turtle Cay, Bahamas

With all the hurricane preparations stowed away again and a beautiful weather window upon us, we decided to do the crossing to the Bahamas. We started Tuesday morning and left from Vero Beach, dropped anchor at Fort Pierce for a few hours waiting on the change in tidal surge, then left out the Fort Pierce Inlet at 3:00pm. We had not been this route before since last year we went south through West Palm and out Lake Worth which is shorter but our weather window wasn’t long enough for us to make it down there then go out so we took the route we could fit in.

The first 4 or so hours were pretty choppy (thank you Bonine for keeping me from getting too seasick!) since we were heading south against the wind and current we hoped it would get better once we turned East, it got a lot better. It took us 28 hours, averaging 5.5 knots over 168 miles (yes, we move very slow & motored the entire way). Hitting the Bahama Bank (very shallow with debris) at dark was not high on our to do list so we scrubbed time to minimized the dark time. My sleeping quarters was the dining room table which drops down into a 5^th bed on our boat. Now how many people get to say they slept on the table last night? I think Ron got 1-2 hours of sleep max and he was beat.

We dropped anchor at Great Sale Cay about 3:00pm which was just in time for burgers on the grill and a beer! We were treated to being the only boat here and I have to say, I forget how beautiful the water, and everything is here. It feels really good to be back and we really could spend the rest of our sailing days getting lost in the islands here if we didn’t have such itchy feet. It was surprising the amount of debris after the recent hurricane. There were lots of logs, a dock ladder, and crazy amount of seaweed on the bank.

Since this was the first time Sailing Hubby let me do solo watches, I finally feel like a sailor. In total I did three official watches: one Tuesday from 5-8pm, 10-midnight, 4:30am Wednesday morning – 6:30am, then off and on over the course of the day when he needed a break. He wanted to be on watch during the swiftest part of the gulf stream and when we hit the Bahama Bank, which required him to be on the longest watch from midnight – 4:30am.

After catching on up some sleep (yes Sailing Hubby went to bed at 6:00pm), we continued 8 more hours East, as our initial destination was Green Turtle Cay to check into immigration. If we didn’t make it by Friday morning to check in, we would be stuck in quarantine all weekend and wouldn’t be able to get off the boat. Therefore, we were up early and headed out by 6:00am Thursday (but at least the dolphins came with us – a very good omen). It didn’t hurt there was a small squall headed straight for us and we wanted to get going before it hit us. But hey – we broke out the sails which helped us move a bit faster with the wind behind us. Ah, the realities of sailing life. Speaking of realities, I am a bit gun shy of Green Turtle since the no-see-ums were SO bad last time. Especially after just getting eaten alive at Vero Beach. Our mooring was right next to the mangroves, and they are vicious! I swear I have Zika from those little suckers! Let’s hope Green Turtle is better & we don’t get struck by lightning on the way there. At least we were off to a good start with the double rainbow.

Cement Donkeys

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