Statistics

The second area I would like to cover has to do with recapping some of the statistics that we have gathered on our trip. Earlier I said we'd been on the road almost six months. Well, since the day we left San Diego on the Baja-ha-ha, until the morning we leave Marina Chahue, it has been 157 days. In two weeks it will be 6 months to the date we started the trip. Of the 157 nights that we've spent on the trip, about we spent about 40% of the nights "on the hook", at anchor in various places, about 40% of them in marinas, about 12% on moorings, and about 8% at sea. The nights we remember the most are those 11 nights we spent at sea!

RHAPSODY has been a good boat for us, though not without issues. We had to replace the starter motor in Tortuga Bay, the inverter fan in Mazatlan, the heat exchanger and exhaust elbow in La Cruz, and repair the windlass in Acapulco. We've constantly been maintaining her, doing oil changes, getting fuel, cleaning filters, washing her, and, in general, taking care of the 1000 and 1 things that keep her running smoothly. I've come up with my own saying about what it means to keep a boat. It's like taking care of a car, a house, and a woman all at the same time! In exchange for all of this effort RHAPSODY has taken very good care of us, for which we are, and will forever be thankful. We realize now more what cruising on a boat really means. It means "fixing your boat in exotic places", and a constant, never ending to-do list. I would say that we have probably, on average, spent about 2-3 days a week just dealing with boat issues.

A large percentage of the remainder of our time has been spent taking care of our human needs. I guess everyone has to do laundry, buy groceries, fill their gas tank up, and so on, but it seems so much more noticeable on a boat, when, for instance, you have to take the laundry in the dinghy to shore, then take a cab or walk a mile with it. Or when getting fuel means that you have to schedule a day in advance to have 10 5-gallon jerry cans delivered via truck to the marina. Buying groceries has been a constant adventure as every town we have visited has been different. Sometimes there is only a small family store, then in the next town there will be a large, well-stocked, air-conditioned mega store.

Nonetheless, all of this "work" is part of the trip, and we have enjoyed it, in some ways, as much as any of the tourist destinations or natural beauty that we have seen.

* assumes generator uses 3/4 gallon per hour