You’d think cruising your own boat in the Caribbean would be a boater’s dream come true. We have put up a pretty good facade thus far, but it has been nothing close to a dream come true.
This is not our first time boating outside the PNW, we have chartered in Australia, Thailand and Tahiti.
We’ve learned two feet of tide can make all the difference in transiting to an anchorage or marina successfully. In narrow passages, the current can deceive you. We’ve learned to read the various shades of blue and what depth they would give us; you cannot solely rely on navionics. We’ve had a steep learning curve.
We have not had a 24 hour period without hiccups. From the generators, to the AC units, to the inverter, to the bilge pump, to the AC units, to the generators, minus the inverter, repeat.
When at anchor, we have to run a generator 24/7 to keep our systems running, i.e. the AC units. Then it’s about putting enough load on the generator at all times, yes, that includes in the wee hours of the night stopping the water maker and flipping on the water heater, cockpit fridge or flybridge freezer, or a combination of them all.
We’ve learned we can overload our system (when we have not had the generator running for an extended period of time) easily and pop a breaker. We also quickly learned where those breakers are located forward and aft.
As we rack up hours on the engines and generators, fuel filters, water, antifreeze, oil, needs to be checked and refilled on a regular basis.
Our last boat sipped 3.9gph, this boat loves to guzzle fuel at 30gph. Every 5-7 days we are putting in two boat units for diesel ($4/g +++).
Docking here is different than in the PNW. To withstand hurricanes, they are not floating docks. For the high docks fenders are hung horizontally, rather than vertically. And they tend to be an afterthought. Dock first, get secure, adjust or put out your fenders.
We are part of a small group of boaters in this area. We’ve only met a handful of boaters on their own powerboat, that don’t have a captain or crew. Most are sailboaters, catamaran charter boats, mega yacht charters, or boats our size and up that have crew.
We’ve learned that a shakedown cruise in the Bahamas is not ideal. It may be a boaters paradise, but even Nassau had limited marine supplies. If you can’t Macgyver your way through and have two and a spare, you are $#*! out of luck. Back to Freeport or Florida you go.
At this point in time, we were hoping to be positioning for the canal. But whenever we have tried to P-L-A-N, it has been disastrous. We will be shipping her from Ft Lauderdale, back to her home waters, in preparation for the PNW boating season. And we could not be happier to write the check.