Between our YouTube Channel and our blog, we share a lot of our life on the water. However, there are always things that go undocumented. Over the years, we have met plenty of new liveaboards who feel like they were “duped” into this lifestyle by its romanticized portrayal on social media. In our experience, living full-time on a boat is expensive, it is hard work, and it is time-consuming. Is it worth it? For us, yes. Is it worth it for you? I’m not sure!

So, in an effort to paint a more realistic picture of boat life, here is a bullet-point list of things we dealt with in October 2023:

• We paid $15 per night to stay on a mooring ball outside St. George’s.
• We bought three bottles of two-stroke oil for our outboard engine for $41.85.
• I polished our stainless steel once. 
• We purchased 55ft of floating line for $46.50 to make new dinghy painters because our old ones frequently sank enough to get caught in our props/sail drives. Since switching to the floating line, we haven’t had that issue!
• Ray made two new soft shackles that we will use to attach our anchor bridle to our anchor chain. We removed our Mantus chain hook and switched to soft shackles a couple of years ago after a line got caught under the bridle while we were furling in the gennaker, launching the heavy, metal hook through the air right toward Ray’s head… The soft shackles have been great for us, but over time, they have warped, becoming harder to open, close, and get through the chain links. So, Ray made us some new ones using a different technique that should hold up better with our chain.

• We searched the island for supplies to turn the remains of our damaged mooring lines into a new anchor bridle but couldn’t find what we needed. We’ve had our bridle for five years and are noticing increased stiffness. Typically, for active cruisers, bridles need to be replaced every 2-3 years, so we are past due!
• We paid $2 several times to dispose of our trash at Port Louis Marina.
• We had Palm Tree Marine rebuild the water pump for our generator for $190.00. They included some extra parts for us this time so we can rebuild it ourselves in the future. 
• We defrosted our front-loader fridge/freezer once. 
• We paid a diver $200 to clean the bottom of Sabado.