6 months out tally count/costs

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Just a quick post of a running tally we have on days anchored, days moored, days docked, and how much we’ve spent on each of those.

158 days anchored (all free except the days spent in Morro Bay)

4 days moored

17 days Docked (proud to say, still only 17, all free except for Ensenada)

Paid $: Mooring $40 (Morro Bay YC)

Docked $105 (Ensenada’s Baja Naval Marina)

Dingy Dock $15 (Cabo San Lucas)

Anchored $159 (Morro Bay Guest Anchorge)

Fuel consumption for 6 months (60 gal diesel).

Mexico check in expenses in Ensenada: $105 for passport/tourists cards, $256 for Port Captain fees, $60 for TIP card, and $45 for fishing license.

I haven’t been too good with figuring how much we spend on food. I’m guessing we spend around $500 a month. We’re not eating out all the time, but we aren’t living on beans and rice either.
Big ticket items that were not anticipated:

replacing our windvane with a new hydrovane. Let’s just say >$5,000 (yikes!).

And just recently, replacing our windlass. Another $2500! Our manual “triple nickel” finally had its last days. Rods sheered, springs broke. Basically, our manual windlass had reached its final day. Unfortunately you can’t find a new manual windlass for a boat larger than 32 feet anymore. Since we are in this for the long haul, we chose to go with a new windlass that is electric with a manual override. Shawnigan had previously had an electric on her, but we wanted manual. At least she’s pretty much all set to install a new electric windlass. Hopefully that’s it, for big ticket purchases this first year of cruising.
Overall a very inexpensive way of living! We’ve noticed that we are one of very few kid boats that anchor instead of docking at a marina if one if available. I’m not sure why this is, but we wished more kid boats anchored out too. I know it can be more of a challenge in ways, but to us, it’s worth it. By not going in to Marinas we basically extend our cruising time by at least 3 months without having to refil the cruising kitty. Or another way to look at it, a month in the Marina at Barra Navidad is about 3 months of food for our family of five! Plus we enjoy our time being more than 10 feet away from the boat next to us. It give us time to focus on each other or school without interruption. It does take more time management to be anchored, and maybe more meal planning, but again, it’s worth it. I enjoy the 15 minutes it takes us to get from our boat to town with our little 5 hp tahatsu outboard. And in more situations, the extra time to row in and out (a little exercise never hurts).

If you’re a kid boat reading this, come anchor with us!

Here’s our pile of chain prepping for windlass change!

Disculpe, quisiera dos tacos al pastor por favor.

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“Disculpe, quisiera dos tacos al pastor por favor.” (“excuse me, I would like two tacos that are pork seasoned and cooked over a fire”)

The food in Mexico is delicious. It’s fresh and most of it locally sourced and much more affordable than in the United States. Yes there is still food with a lot of stuff we choose not to eat, but there is also a large variety of “clean” food to eat.

Here in Barra de Navidad, the local tiendas (small grocery stores) have so much fresh produce. We are eating so many more fresh fruits and vegetables than we did in the states. Nuts are harder to come by in large quantities, but we found some that are sold in their raw form.

Beans and corn tortillas are pretty much a daily intake. Bulk dried beans are easy to find, cheap to purchase and super easy to make in a pressure cooker. I’ve also been making our own corn tortillas, but sometimes we buy the fresh made ones from the tienda. A dozen farm fresh, never refrigerated, eggs cost about $2.00. I mention “never refrigerated” because on a boat, eggs last longer outside of the refrigerator if they’ve never been refrigerated in the first place.

The Carniceria (butcher shop) offers a variety of fresh local meat. Or sometimes just walking along the street you can find a local house selling their fresh chicken from their back yard. The Pescaderia (fish market) offer lots of fish and the shrimp for less than $10/kilo! So far, we’ve been able to catch our own fish.

Other fabulous finds on the street:

Pollo Asada (A whole bbq chicken) for 100-120 pesos, which is about $5.50, and it comes with rice, tortillas, salad, and salsa.

El Riconcita, one of a few local restaurants who uses a tire rim to bbq the delicious food.

Between the three tables, three kid boats and four other boats (Agamère, Wild Rumpus, Shawnigan, Gene Butler, Chae Mi, Ness, and Fukngivr)

The local bakery. Chicha, the mother of the house runs the bakery and her family helps out. They open the “garage door” around noon, when they sell day old pastries. At around 4pm the fresh baked goods come out! Amazing cinnamon rolls, chocolate croissants, and ham, cheese and jalapeño croissants and many more tasty treats.

“The tamale lady”. Rosa sets up a few tables to sell her homemade tamales daily on the street. She starts at 5pm and usually sells out by 7pm. Each day she has a different type or two on the menu. Somedays it’s chicken and sweet corn, others is pork, cheese and pepper, and pineapple. Each one is super yummy and they cost only 10 pesos each! That’s pretty much 0.55 cents each. It’s hard not to just eat tamales for dinner every night, the whole family can eat for $10!

Hamburgers and beer. Hotel Sands has amazing burgers and beer from 7 Mares Cerveceria out of Gaudalajara. Once in a while it’s nice to have a little taste of The States. It just happens to be a good place to tie up our dinghy as well. The people who run the place are very nice and very welcome to cruisers.

Pizza. So far we haven’t really found a place in Barra that we love for pizza. Our favorite place was back in Chamela at Scuba Jazz. They make amazing pizza there.

Coffee. Good coffee has been extremely hard to find. We wish we would have stocked up on it better before we left San Diego! Fortunetly, Barra has a little coffee house called La BRUJA. It is owned by a local gringo couple, who have it set up as a artisan coffee shop and surf shop. Pretty much a perfect combo for us. With a steady flow of smiling customers, you would think they are serving some secret happy drink. Between the good locally roasted coffee, fresh veggie juices, good salads and good vibes, this spot is a gem.

With all that said, it’s hard not to eat out all the time. We do a pretty good job eating on the boat during the day with the occasional evening outing.

-A family Afloat