at the corner of Need and Want...

Well in reference to that last post I find the biggest obstacle to doing things simpler, cheaper and more green seems to be a collective bit of selective amnesia in many people who sail and cruise. Symptoms of this affliction is the overuse of words like "Need" and "Impossible" as well as the phrase "It might work for you but in my case..."

Back when we were sailing around the Med on Loose Moose 2 we were right in the middle in terms of size at thirty seven feet and a fifty foot boat was such a rarity as it brought on oohs and aahs wherever they went. Hardly anyone trusted or had roller furling, Engines were not used more than the bare minimum and some boats did not even have engines at all! All the various sailing magazines were running stories and editorials about multihulls being death traps because in those bygone days the sailing magazines had not yet discovered Multihull companies as a cash cow who would buy advertising. Time marches on...

Oh yeah, back then the biggest hazard to an ocean crossing was not the 10,000 containers that go walkabout but the odd Pliosaur looking for a tasty morsel...Yeah right.

But seriously folks we find ourselves in hard times and a lot of us have forgotten the difference between the words need and want...We all want bigger, and better but we don't always need bigger and better. No matter how deep you do the Ostrich thing bigger and better these days have costs that go far deeper than actual dollars and cents.

Someone who makes the case a lot better than I can by their example is Lin and Larry Pardey who a long time ago built a small boat without an engine and proceeded to go off to sea and have a good life in the process... and they are still doing it.

By a lot of folks standards just about all of the accomplishments of Lin and Larry Pardey over the years are impossible. All those thousands and thousands of miles on Seraffyn without an engine or electricity but the difference between those folks and the Pardeys is that Lin and Larry know the difference between "Need" and "Want".

Everyone should read "Cruising in Seraffyn". If you have not it will be a pleasure and a learning experience. If you have read it way back when it wouldn't be a bad idea to pick it up again and reread it just to remember what sailing used to be and still could be with the right mindset.

Ecowankerism...

Jay Fitzgerald over on Sensible Simplicity gets it so very very right...

Ecowankerism: the belief that one can live in an ecologically benign manner without significant personal sacrifice in consumption or lifestyle.

Jay gets a lot of things right... Take some time and check it out!

Sensible Simplicity

First though...

...You have to catch the fish!

AAARRGHHHH...

There is a lot of talk these days about the economy and how things are all sucky. My inbox is filled with various missives about the marine business sector and how things are... well... Sucky! Well of course they don't use the word "sucky" as they use words like dismal, depressed, grim, devitalized, weak, impaired, slack, and gloomy. Which to my untrained economic mind translates as sucks...

Anyway...My Garmin chart plotter is way past its sell by date and even when it was new it was pretty well past its sell by date as it sort of sucked from the get/go. Garmin being one of those companies who like to tweak their gear so that the new stuff is not compatible with the old stuff ( spelled in this case need to buy new charts which is the only thing I actually liked about the old chart plotter) the last brand I would consider for anything electronic on a boat I own is Garmin ( well a toss up really between Garmin and Raymarine for that honor) so I had to search out a new plotter.

Trying to sort through the various marine electronics companies is something of an uphill battle as most are very information light on their products and most marine stores these days just sell boxes. Long gone are the days when your local chandlery was a font of information as most can't even tell you what sort of chart a given chart plotter uses much less what sort of charting is already installed or if you can plug in an AIS to it. That said the locals guys who don't know Navionics Gold or Silver from C Map will at least sell you stuff if you happen to have money. Not so from the various Big Box store in the US of A who seem to find it impossible to just pop something in the mail to your Stateside PO Box ( PO Boxes being something like rocket science in a FEDEX world) or God forbid send something to a boat sailing in someplace like the Caribbean.

Which brings me back to at least one reason that marine business is not doing so well these days...SUCKY service. I have been trying to spend money on a new chart plotter and not cheap electronic charts and it has been something of a nightmare between companies not knowing the products they sell, selling products they don't actually have in stock, unwilling to ship to PO boxes or outside the USA and so on. I won't even get into after sales service as that is a whole different can of worms...

I'm still looking for a chart plotter and charts...

Bikes on boats...

One of the few problems I have with the CAL 34 is that there is simply no place to store a pair of bicycles. Bikes were a big part of our traveling style while we lived and cruised in Europe and the Med and Loose Moose 2 had a storage area forward where two full sized bikes, touring gear and suchlike could live quite happily. The bikes gave us a range of land travel and improvement in the quality of life that made all the difference. We used them for everything from shopping to hauling water from a natural water spring or visiting a winery we'd heard good things about or simply just riding for the enjoyment of it all...

Of course I have searched and searched among compact and various folding bikes trying to find the sort of bike that will work for our needs while being stowable and up to the marine environment but so far nothing quite makes the grade.

Now that we are laying the groundwork for building "Loose Moose 3" we are back to looking at full sized bikes but lately there have been some developments on the folding front that just may work out for "So It Goes"...

Bike Friday has a very interesting website that really has a hook for people like me as it concentrates on real people who ride their bikes. I'm always impressed about products that are so liked by their clients that they become a community of sorts... In Bike Fridays there is a very strong sense that buying into a Bike Friday bike is as much joining a community as buying a bike. This alone is enough to make me want to try out their bikes. People who have these bikes are our kind of people.

Of course I'll admit to being something of a conservative where bikes are concerned. Little wheels do make me somewhat uneasy for long distance touring which is just the sort of thing I like and doing a century on a Saturday with a double on Sunday used to be my standard weekend riding pattern. Whether or not I'll like the Bike Friday and its little wheels for an "only" bike is unsure. However, if they are half as good as their clients seem to think and I were looking for a bike to add to a quiver, the Pocket Llama would be a slam dunk.

Another bike that has got my attention is the Swiss Bike which seems to be better than most of the more or less full size folding mountain type bike. Montague has been making folders for ages and they seem to have it down to something of a science... well the folding part at least as the Montagues I have ridden in the past have not quite had the ride I was looking for. That said, I have heard some very positive noises about the Swiss Bike XO and it is very much on my list of bikes to try in the not too distant future.

There is an alternative to the folding bike which opens a lot of possibilities to the discerning rider/sailor and it is the neat Bicycle torque couplings (BTC's) built by S & S Machine which can be added while having a frame built for you or even retrofitted to most frames which will make your bike a take down rather than a folder... Two bikes of this sort on my radar are the Ultimate Travel Bike by R&E Cycles (it even has a bottle opener in the frame!) and the Retro Unleaded or the 29er Unleaded by SyCip designs which are available with the BTC"s and seriously WICKED!

Location independent living...

Since we were speaking about boating in hard times, it might be a good time to mention that living on a boat really does make a lot of sense... That is, if you don't try to turn it in to some sort of mirror image of living and working on land.

Boats are meant to be mobile and they do their thing best when they MOVE! I'll admit to having a bit of a problem with those who define themselves as "liveaboards". All too often liveaboard translates to living in an overcrowded, overpriced marina with all of the same hassles of going to a job, owning a car, commuting, and a landlord who does not fix stuff...What is the point?

Sadly a lot of people who take this route do so with the idea that it is a needful step to cutting the ties with shore before they sail off into the sunset and start living the life they want to live. In most cases it is simply a dead end and the list of excuses as to the why folks are still in some awful marina six years on is a long and an apparently endless list of "BUTS"

Not everyone may have noticed it but there has been a revolution of sorts over the last couple of decades... We now all have computers and it as easy for a lot of us to do business from some anchorage with WIFI as it is tied to that overpriced marina with the loud neighbors in the powerboat next to you. On the odd chance that someone anchors too close and you don't like the music they are playing, hey presto up the anchor and move a bit...The revolution goes further as it is not just computers and WIFI and while the US of A keeps talking about alternative energy at some undisclosed future the cruising community has been wired in to solar and wind generation for at least a decade. The days to be tied to a dock for communication and power is very much a thing of the past. What makes it even better is that with the right mindset and a bit of thought it is also a very affordable lifestyle with no need to give up comfort and needful things.

Not camping!

Then again a lot of liveaboard folk are still tied to their jobs and to cut that rather evil umbilical of being a wage slave means some serious looking outside of the box and, for what it's worth, some creative flair/skill as well which if I am not mistaken IS what your employer pays you for...

The really nice thing about living on a sailboat that moves is that you can be home and comfortable anywhere you happen to be. Right now we are weighing the pros and cons of where to be when the next hurricane season comes to the Caribbean. Right now it is a toss up between sailing over to Europe/Med ( we really like the South of France) or sail up to the East coast of the US of A and hang around with friends between Newport RI and the Chesapeake. The fact is that wherever we wind up we will be home doing business as usual!

Which is a long and roundabout way of mentioning a rather important blog (albeit not a sailing or boat blog) and website for people who want to look outside the box and sever that shore bound umbilical... Location Independent Living is a blog which should open up a lot of people's eyes on how you can take advantage of the current revolution in communication and technology to take off now and have a business that supports you in the process.

Boating in hard times...

Sitting here at anchor in St Martin one is constantly aware at just how much money is spent by the ultra rich on their toys. Now I for one don't begrudge folks spending money on fun stuff...far from it in fact as life is short and you really should have a good time. Color me all RAH RAH on the fun stuff front!

Well to be truthful, that is I'm all for people spending their money on their fun but not me paying for their fun with my money! So you might understand why I take some issue with the Bank of America spending upwards around TEN MILLION dollars on their fun and frolic at this years Super Bowl...You may recall the Bank of America just got bailed out to the tune of FORTY FIVE BILLION dollars and it is oh so nice to see they are putting that money to good use

Now for a lot of us who don't have Politicians paying for our fun and frolic with taxpayers dollars we have to be somewhat frugal and smart with our pennies to build boats, sail them and go cruising but then again most of us would not have it any other way.

On the other hand it is only a matter of time till one of the new big Mega Yachts steams into an anchorage I'm sitting in with a clever spit in your face name like..."BAILOUT BABY" or some such. When that happens all bets are off!

Worth bookmarking...

Rod Heikell who is author of many and varied excellent cruising guides has an great website Tell-Tales which is an incredible resource for anyone wanting to sail away in a trauma free manner. Advice you can take to the bank...