Welp, it’s about time we get moving south, eh? With all the boat dramas from the last few episodes now behind us, we’re finally making miles south down the Illinois River. And good thing, too, ‘cause winter is hot on our keel.
This is the first full month on the river, and our first full month away from our home port. After putting last month's craziness behind us, we were delighted to see that we were much much closer to our long-term monthly cruising budget goal of $3,000 a month.
Oh dear…This one’s for you dreamers out there who will one day become newbie boat owners, just like us. Take notes! Hopefully you won’t have to make these same mistakes. Last episode, we had issues with our centerboard, which were — surprise! — caused by yours truly.
What lies between us and saltwater sailing? 1300 miles of rivers! Before we can get underway, we need to unstep our mast. For this leg of our journey south, we turning our sailboat into a motorboat.
This was a bit of a crazy month. We completed the last of our must-have upgrades before heading for the river, we left our homeport, we had a big going away party/celebrated Lauren's birthday, and we had some big boat expenses - some of them unexpected.
Once we returned from our shakedown sail we had a long list of projects wanted to complete on the boat. We knew we wouldn't get to all of them before leaving but that was ok, we prioritized and slowly checked off those that were absolutely necessary.
After spending the first month getting to know the boat, and taking a few day sails, we were ready to start picking up a few key items and a few small improvements needed for spending a few weeks away from our homeport on our shakedown sail where we sailed across Lake Michigan.
We closed on our boat on July 1st in Racine, Wisconsin. July is the first full month in our Monthly Cruising Budget series and is also the first full month of boat ownership.
Do you dream of sailing over the horizon in your own sailboat? If so, one of the biggest questions you probably have is, How much is the boat?
Many of us feel uncomfortable talking about money. Which is probably why a lot of us are so poor at managing money and understanding finances. We want to help change that -- at least as far as it relates to sailing, and cruising.
