Cruising by the numbers – wrap up.

 

I was going to do one more Cruising by the Numbers for the month of May, but we didn’t spend the whole month cruising.  As a result, the cruising vs. non-cruising expenses started getting muddled together, so I figured I’d just post some random facts and figures instead.  But first, here are May’s non-financial statistics from May 1 until May 21 when we pulled into our slip at Shenny:

Days under way: 12

Nautical miles covered: 644.07

Nights at anchor: 5

Nights on a mooring: 2

Nights in a slip:  12 (this included 4 nights at a free docks)

Nights underway: 1

Number of states: 5 (North Carolina, Virginia, New Jersey, New York, Connecticut)

 

As for cruising overall, we cast off the dock lines on September 3, 2018 and tied them again on May 21, 2021, totaling 993 days.  Two things struck me as I went through the notes I’ve kept.  

First:  We were able to spend over nine months in the Bahamas.  Many people never get to go at all, or, if they do, they spend a few days or a week.  But getting to spend nine months there?  How cool is that??  And, it’s entirely possible we will go down again in a few years.  But if we don’t?  What an adventure we’ve had!

Second: We acquired so much experience over the past three years.  If you’re reading this and thinking, “I could never go cruising.  I don’t have nearly enough experience,” just know that even though we had been sailing for several years before cutting the dock lines, our farthest trip had been 40 nautical miles, we had anchored less than a dozen times, and we had never sailed at night.  Now?  Well, you can see for yourself below.  You can do it.  At its core, each day is just more sailing.  

Nautical miles traveled: 10,415

Days in the Bahamas: 288 (29% of the time)

Nights at anchor: 565 (57% of the time)

Nights on the hard: 45 (4% of the time).  Most of that was 30 days at Shenny during the summer of 2019 when we traveled via automobile and airplane to visit family.

Overnights: 11

Three longest non-stop trips: 299 nautical miles, 294 nautical miles, and 250 nautical miles

Number of trips over 100 nautical miles: 12

Non-Bahamian squalls while underway: 2 – one in the Gulf Stream in Florida, and one off the coast of Virginia.

Number of tows needed: 1 – when we picked up bad fuel in the Abacos our first year, sailed to the St. John’s inlet by Jacksonville, and had a tow from TowBoat U.S. to Beach Marine in Jacksonville Beach.

Number of times the engine stopped unexpectedly: 4 – 2 times due to the above-referenced dirty fuel, 1 time from a dirty filter in the Exumas resulting in our anchoring under sail for the first time, and 1 time just outside the Ft. Pierce inlet when we were rolling around, lower on fuel than we realized, and the engine sucked in some air.  

Number of times we felt unsafe: 2 – both in anchorages in Florida due to the actions of occupants of derelict boats (Cocoa Beach and Daytona Beach)

Number of Coast Guard boardings for a safety check: 1

Number of REALLY bad weather decisions: 1 – going south down the Jersey Coast in October, 2018.

Number of underwater dike collisions: 1 – that damn Reedy Island Dike in the Delaware Bay

Number of times we’ve been within 1 mile of the Reedy Island Dike since the collision: 0.