Hi Folks. Sorry for the lack of updates lately, but frankly, there hasn’t been anything new to write about.
I’m just working (not fun) and enjoying the liveaboard life (fun!). Trying to save up money to get some of these boat projects finished so I can get back to enjoying the sailing life. Unfortunately saving hasn’t gone so well lately. I’ve been pretty much broke the past few months and haven’t made any real progress. But it’s OK! I’m finding my feet again (again!) and getting my spending habits on lockdown.
Of course, the lack of financial progress doesn’t necessarily mean no progress at all. The past few months have been very educational for me. I spend a lot of time thinking about this boat and what I want from my life, since they go hand-in-hand…
For folks like me, having to get up and go to work every day is the worst thing in the world. Going to work interferes with my life. My goal in life, my dream, is to not have to go to work. Being free from employment is the only way I’ll ever be free enough to travel the world. I mean, there’s other ways, like winning the lottery, or saving up for the next 10 years, or landing some miraculously well paying, travel-friendly job. But those are not things I can make happen. So what’s a guy to do?
I’m capable of working for myself and making decent money in the construction trades. But you can’t travel with that type of business since it requires establishing a name for yourself and building a customer base, and lots of tools that would never fit on a 30 foot sailboat. And when you travel and start a new job every time you land somewhere you’re always starting at the bottom, no matter how skilled you are. It takes time to work you’re way up the ladder, even with small companies. I thought I could do it this way, save up, travel, start over, do it all again… But now I think it’s going to be much more difficult than I thought. Obviously…
I thought I could save up something like $4-600 a month. But the reality is, the only way to do that on a small income is to not have any bills. This is part of the reason I wanted to live aboard right away. I figured I could live at anchor, bill free, and be able to save a lot more. But as it turns out, living at anchor is not that simple. It requires a very self-sufficient boat, a good dinghy, and many other things I simply can’t afford yet.
So, I need to both make more money, and spend less of it, in order to get this boat in cruising shape within a reasonable amount of time. But what about after that? Can I realistically live at anchor and maintain a job?
What I need is to create an income that doesn’t require being employed (by someone else) and can be made from anywhere in the world.
There’s many different things a person can do while travelling on a boat to make money. Anything from welding, mechanical work, and canvas work. To things like diving, chartering, and captaining. Those are all realistic ways to work and travel. But they require education and investment, and often a major time investment.
What I want is an internet based business…
I’m not a programmer, but I have dabbled in website creation from time to time over the years. The trick to making money online is to generate advertising income. A little blog like this one will never make any money. It makes less than $50 a year (so far). But, I’ve come up with a few websites that I think could actually generate a little bit of money each month. The idea is to make a little bit from many different websites. Maybe one website only makes $20 a month, but another makes $50… 10-15 websites later, and I’d be pulling in enough to start traveling.
Of course it’s not easy or everyone would be doing it. It takes me a long time to make a good website, and all of the ideas I have will require daily updating. I’d be writing articles and posting things to websites several hours a day. But the beauty is, it can be done from anywhere in the world with wifi access. It’s not a way to get rich, but if I can just generate a few hundred a month, I’d retire to the freedom of budget-cruising my way around the world.
So that’s what I want to do. I want to take the time to create a few websites and try my hand at becoming financially self-sufficient.
Meanwhile, I’m going to work on a few of the other things, like diving. I have an opportunity to take some diving classes and get certified. I think it’s a great way to make some money on the side while travelling. This past week I tried to change the prop-zinc on my boat and couldn’t do it because I simply can’t hold my breath long enough. I got lucky and a diving friend did it for free, but I was ready to pay someone to do it. The majority of boats here, and in most places, pay someone to clean their bottoms and change their zincs. $100 for an hour or two of work is pretty good pay, if you ask me.
Personally, I can’t stand the thought of not being to do my own work. So becoming a diver seems to be an essential part of being a self-sufficient sailor. Boats require bottom work, and unless you can hold your breath for 2-3 minutes at a time, you need some kind of air supply. I’m looking into building a simple hookah rig (like this only a lot cheaper) from a compressor, but it requires much of the same gear a diver would use (regulators, weights, etc..) and a scuba tank is much cheaper, more reliable, and easier to stow on the boat than a compressor. The main problem is, you have to be certified to get scuba tanks filled… And taking lessons will be much safer than trying to figure it all out on my own. Diving is not something I want to do for recreation. I just want to be able to work on my own boat, and maybe make a few bucks working on other peoples boats.
So where does this all leave me? I still think I’m in a good place here. It’s very cheap to live, I’m not making much money, but it’s enough to live well and/or save at least a little bit. There are endless resources around here for working on the boat and getting it into cruising condition. Of course, I’d rather live somewhere further south while I put this life together, but I think I can deal with Viriginia for another year. The summer is very nice around here. It’s an energetic atmosphere and people love to get outside and play. Atleast, its really nice when it’s less than 95 degrees out… I don’t particularly like the Chesapeake Bay. I mean, it’s not like the beaches, I’m used to… The water is polluted. I’m not interested in eating the fish out of here, so fishing is kinda pointless and swimming is kinda gross. But, it’s still 100% better than being landlocked somewhere like Ohio. I’ll have the boat sailing again in another week or three… There’s certainly other places I’d rather be but, it’s not so bad that I feel like I really have to leave right away.
The reality is I just can’t afford it. I can’t afford to haul out my boat, buy a new dinghy, upgrade my anchor, replace the standing rigging… I can’t afford a boat the way everybody else can. Something has to change. Either I live like a hermit and save for a year or two to get myself out of this slump, or I figure out how to earn more money. I’m going with a combination of the two prospects…Meanwhile I’ll save what I can, and keep doing what I can to do the boat.
It’s slow going these days.
But life continues to be an enjoyable adventure.
PS: It’s HOT! I almost bought an A/C unit this weekend, but I figure I better tough it out and keep the money…
Good to see you are still enjoying yourself Dave, your boat is looking great. Wish I could give you some advice on the job front, the best I have come up with is delivering newspapers lol. I dabbled with the idea of trucking also, but that would mean giving up a lot of time with my family. Diving sounds like a pretty good gig, no employers, work your own hours, heck yeah
I wish you the best there.
The one thing I would be worried about with anchoring, would be leaving the boat behind while at work. But it would save a ton of money, regardless I wish you the best man.
Thanks Jeff,
Leaving the boat on the Hook while going to work is the biggest problem with anchoring out. You really need an excessively large and well designed anchor, along with good chain and line.
That's one of the main reasons I haven't tried it yet. The other reason is you need to have a working holding tank and nearby pump-out facility, or an Electra-Scan flushing toilet (still not legal but perfectly eco-friendly, I'd happily flush an electra-scan into the bay or rivers, or even marinas, and with an electric flushing toilet, nobody would hear it).
Electra-scans are way too expensive for me, although I found a used one for about $300 once, they are normally around $1200. And the anchor and chain everything is another $5-800 or so.
The other thing you need to anchor out semi-permanently is a good dinghy and motor. You can't expect to row to work in the morning against a 15kt breeze in a river with a 2kt current, and with a bicycle aboard… A good motor and dinghy is essential. There's another $1000….
Whats that saying? BOAT stands for “Break Out Another Thousand”. It's true. It's all true.
I'll get there though. It's just a matter of doing one thing at a time until it's ready.
Hey david! I am still stuck in ohio! For some reason today was really rubbing me the wrong way. I love my job but this is taking way too long. Since I have paid off the truck I have 5,500 saved since last time I left a comment. I too think about how I will be able to generate an income. I always wanted to be a bicycle courier and if I could find an inexpensive mooring ball in annapolis I could really make that work assuming the pay would be around $10/hour. I am stuck for now in ohio/west virginia and getting totally stir crazy. I did get my basic dive certification a few years ago and I considered the benefits of having scuba gear aboard or a hookah to do something similar. I am sure there are plenty of other cruisers with somewhat of an expendable income to clean their bottom. I was thinking about how you would advertise, some sort of professional sign or banner could do.
Anyways, at this rate we will be in the Chesapeake at the same time. I was going to inquire about your marina, how well you like it and about the proximity to good jobs, food and supplies.
What about buddy boats? Such as a small like minded community that anchors out and watches each others boats while others are out? Would that work? Seems like the boating community as a whole, look out for one another.
Oh and I joined CF, I posted in the meets and greets.
Thanks,
TD
Dan,
Good job on the savings. I think that's the hardest part of this whole gig.
Buddy boats or flotilla type of thing sounds really interesting. The only problem is finding places that will allow semi-permanent anchoring. They are few and far between in the US.
It's an unfortunate fact that we are not “free” in America. We're free to say what we want and do stupid stuff, but the powers that be will do everything they can to prevent us from living without expenses. They seem to think if we don't own a house (and pay taxes), or we don't pay rent and live like everybody else, then we must be “mooching” off them. They honestly believe that anyone who isn't throwing their money at the system is taking advantage of it. The result is fewer and fewer anchorages where a boat can stay without being chased out.
I think it'll be a challenge to find cheap mooring in Annapolis. You're best bet is to come to Hampton and pay about $250 a month for a liveaboard friendly marina. You can only anchor out here for about a month before the coast guard will ask you to move (and give you 30 days). There are no moorings at all in this area. The moorings in Annapolis are for transient boaters and they charge by the day. There's a few marina's that might have mooring balls (I've seen them on google maps, but can't get any prices), but I'd suspect they are $400 a month marina's and it's still going to cost you $200 a month to rent a mooring from them. I could be wrong though, do your own research
There's always the possibility of finding a private slip or mooring for rent on craigslist or something. I'm sure you'll work it out
You can certainly anchor out, but most likely you'll have to change anchorages every month or two depending on where you're at. This makes going to work everyday extremely difficult. The west coast is a little different, I think they have designated anchorages. I know there's a few in a few of the cities around FL, and there's always the more remote locations where nobody will complain. But in terms of keeping a job, anchoring is a real challenge on the East Coast.
One of the websites I'm building I'd like to have a list (or maybe a wiki) of free/permanent anchorages around the country. So if you guys find any or know of any, email me and let me know where they are. david at mylifeafloat dot com
Don't give up on the dream. Hey, you are on a boat, so you are 90% there. Ah, but that last 10% . . .
I'm looking for a bigger trailer sailer right now.
My little Oday 19 will still do if I don't get one at my price point. I have a place in FL where I could store it in the summer. The plan is to Summer in NH and winter in southern waters, FL and Carib. Still trying to meet with a guy who has a 25 footer.
Found some interesting places on the FL west coast last winter.
This coming winter we plan on checking out the FL Keys and FL Bay. Looking for places for long term anchoring with few hassles.
Been to the Keys by road a lot and sailed a bit down there.
My five year plan has me buying 2 more sailboats. We plan on downsizing from our house to a yurt for the summer. I've got the land already.
I'm doing all this with a very tiny budget. We've been accused of living on nothing but air.
Hey Sixbears!
Don't worry, I'm not giving up on anything. I think it's more a matter of dealing with the reality of it all. I wish I could just take off and live the dream, but reality says it's gonna take a while longer. Not a problem
I've seen the anchorages in the Keys myself. Looks like a great place to stay, but the only problem is finding work down there. Lots of people looking for work on a very small part of land…
Of course.. I'm always hopeful and I don't think I would the appearance of a lack of work stop me from going somewhere.
It helps to pre-plan everything and know you're walking into a good situation, but I have much experience with just walking into the situation first and working things out… If anyone could find a job in the Keys it would be me
Can't edit comments… typos galore.
I think living on the hook in Annapolis is a quite reasonable thing to do. Until Winter comes. It's my understanding that several people do that and then grab a slip in the wintertime.
One of the nice things about Annapolis is that every street that dead ends on the water has a dinghy dock. Really convenient.
As to how long you can anchor there, as far as I know there are no limitations. BUT, even if there are, you are on a boat. Go sailing once in awhile! Problem solved.