Planning ahead

[chowdan]

Hey everybody,

My girlfriend and I are deciding to start planning for our one day adventure. Of cruising the Caribbean and Mediterranean, however since we are new not just to the planning but to the cruising aspects, we wanted to reach out to the community to see how you guys go about the planning phase.

A bit about us, I am 25, a software test engineer, the gf, 23, is a nurse in cardiac ICU. I recently got converted full time, so my income is a bit over 80k/year now, but our combined income(excluding current investments) is just over 140k/year.

At our current spending rate, we are roughly at 50% savings, however our goal(by Jan 2016) is to get to 70% savings. At 70% we are looking at around 100k/year in savings, given we want to cut dock lines and go cruise for a good 2-3years starting in 2020 we have decided to start our planning phase.

We are looking at a few boats to buy for day/weekend cruising around PNW/Puget sound for right now, but when the time comes we want to upgrade to a full cruising boat. However if we find one at the right price, we may go forward with it. Our current budget for our boat is 10k at most, preferably 5k.

That being said, how do you all go about your route planning? We are wanting to leave from Seattle, head south down the coast and cross Panama canal and cruise Caribbean and go from there. How do you pick ports to dock at for fuel and provision resupply?

Does anyone use any software for planning routes or is it just doesn't hand on charts?

Thanks!

[chowdan]

On a side note, i wrote this on my cell, I didn't realize that we had a sub-forum for "cruising plans" within the destination forum. If a mod feels this post belongs in that sub forum, please move it as i can't delete the thread.

[Adelie]

For planning get Jimmy Cornell's "World Cruising Routes", BA chart #5208, and the U.S. Atlas of pilot charts for all the relevant areas. The pilot charts can be downloaded free from the U.S. Govt.


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[Adelie]

Did either one of you attend the UW? If either of you is an alumni there is an excellent sailing program, it's where I go my start.

What ICU does your SO work at?

[chowdan]

Originally Posted by Adelie

Did either one of you attend the UW? If either of you is an alumni there is an excellent sailing program, it's where I go my start.

What ICU does your SO work at?

Thank you for the comments! Really appreciate the advice! Neither of us attended UW, I really wish i had access to their sailing program! I am a self taught software test engineer and the SO went to SeattleU.

She works at Seattle Children's in the CICU ward. Are you located here in WA or did you just go to school around here?

I'll have to get my hands on a copy of the books World Cruising Routes and start looking through some charts available

[paxfish]

Nice to be able to bank that cash at your young age. 10 years at $100000 a year savings will compound nicely! Done right, that can become $1.5M and generate $50,000 in investment income annually. You can have a good chunk of your retirement ready and take a cruise before kids come along!

Since you have some flexibility here, and you are looking at well used boats, consider buying something nearer to your expected cruising grounds and then selling it when you are done with that area. This might reduce your exposure on longer passages until you build up some boat knowledge. For example, I saw a cool Bristol the other day for $15K in Annapolis. CLASSIC BRISTOL 35 SAILBOAT Many similar boats become available of similar capability (No, I am not the OWNER! .

Sell it when you are done for the same $$$ and then think about the med, or baja or whatever.

Definitely read and adopt some of the Mr Money Mustache (Google it) principles.

[Adelie]

Originally Posted by chowdan

Thank you for the comments! Really appreciate the advice! Neither of us attended UW, I really wish i had access to their sailing program! I am a self taught software test engineer and the SO went to SeattleU.



She works at Seattle Children's in the CICU ward. Are you located here in WA or did you just go to school around here?



I'll have to get my hands on a copy of the books World Cruising Routes and start looking through some charts available

Lived in Seattle for 26yr. Now unhappily living in San Diego.

This http://msi.nga.mil/NGAPortal/MSI.por...portal_page_62 is the link to the pilot charts and a whole bunch of other free publications courtesy of the fed govt.


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[chowdan]

Originally Posted by paxfish

Nice to be able to bank that cash at your young age. 10 years at $100000 a year savings will compound nicely! Done right, that can become $1.5M and generate $50,000 in investment income annually. You can have a good chunk of your retirement ready and take a cruise before kids come along!

Since you have some flexibility here, and you are looking at well used boats, consider buying something nearer to your expected cruising grounds and then selling it when you are done with that area. This might reduce your exposure on longer passages until you build up some boat knowledge. For example, I saw a cool Bristol the other day for $15K in Annapolis.
Many similar boats become available of similar capability (No, I am not the OWNER! .

Sell it when you are done for the same $$$ and then think about the med, or baja or whatever.

Definitely read and adopt some of the Mr Money Mustache (Google it) principles.

Heh, funny you say MMM. I've been following him for the last 2 years. I've come a LONG way from where i started. I moved to the USA from Fiji when i turned 18, had $100 in the bank. Moved to Seattle in 2010 at 19 with $2000 in the bank. I've slowly(ish) worked my way up the ladder since 2010 and working minimum wage jobs in the games industry(work 365 days, forced to go on 'contract' break for 3 months). Fortunately breaking out of the games industry getting paid $15/hour at the high end was the best thing that ever happened to me.

Fortunately my line of work is very profitable, and now that I am a FTE at a large ecommerce company, I'll be able to dive even deeper into the automation and programming world, which will only boost my value to the company and also my income. I still remember to this day, seeing that tax return showing i earned just under $19k for that year.

I've always had hard times with "spending" money, but i also am a technology nerd, so its hard to resist sometimes. That being said, over the last 2 years, becoming an avid fan of MMM, i've been able to withold my spending habits pretty well. There are times where i spend money on something i know i shouldn't have(like a new laptop), but each month, those things become fewer and fewer.

I'm also incredibly happy that my SO is an avid goodwill shopper. She loves buying shoes/clothes, but she hates paying retail price, or even sales, so Goodwill is the next best thing!

We have debated about plannig for a longer term cruise, and pushing out the untying date, however I personally dont think either of us can wait longer. We both love traveling, and we both want to explore the world regardless if it means taking sacrafices.

Who knows though, I say all of this, and maybe in 3 years we could say that the time isn't right and we need to save more.

We have a large portion of cash already stashed away that is actively invested. Neither of us are too fond of this, however we have dumped the old manager, and replaced him with someone a bit more expensive but one who is a fiduciary. He's also actively helping us build out spending and savings budgets. The SO savings income is being diverted to him, while my savings will be diverted into investments of my choice, mainly index funds, lending club and a few other channels.

I like the idea of buying something near the expected cruising grounds. I think my biggest concern is buying a boat and coming to find out that i need to dump atleast the amount of money that i paid for it into just getting her sea-worthy, but that might be another discussion?

My theory was to acquire a boat here, and for the final 6 months to a year, live aboard to boost the savings significantly while being able to finish off the final "must do" projects. That way when we head off, the list of things that need to be done will be signficantly lower? However the biggest question would be, which one is cheaper? Buying one up here, doing upgrades where needed vrs buying one for 40-50k that needs minimal upgrades?

Our idea was to spend around 20k on a 35ft boat(give or take some feet), and have about 20-30k for upgrades IF we needed to spend that much?