2024 Cruising Roundup

2024 was the year we were going to sail to Maine. We had a plan, but with most things in boat life, it didn’t go according to plan. Our original schedule was to be there in May, which meant leaving Florida sometime in April. April came around and we weren’t ready. May came around and we weren’t ready. Life at Dinner Key Marina spilled into June. When July hit we just stopped telling people when we were going to be leaving. We had a list of things to do before we set sail and even though we got 80% of that done, we still ran into problems when we got halfway up the Florida coast. July 15 was the day we finally left and started our 5.5 month adventure before we would need to come back to Florida to work on our project boat.

We accomplished our goal. We made it to Maine and experienced the most amazing fall. On the way up and on the way down, we stopped at locations old and new. We dropped the hook in a variety of anchorages, tied up to many moorings, and enjoyed being dock queens at several marinas. Below is a roundup of journey with links to individual pages with more details of each.

Anchorages/Moorings/Marinas

Although we would have preferred to be on anchor, we had the opportunity to tie to mooring balls and stay at marinas for a purpose. We also learned that our current anchor (105 lb Mantus) was way too big to be pulling up and down so frequently.

• Nights on anchor: 37
• Nights on mooring: 36
• Nights at a dock: 66
• Nights sailing: 7
• Total cost: $3,310 ($676 per month)
  • By sailing north during the “off season” and thanks to people we knew with mooring balls and slips, we were able to spend 50% less than what we would have paid staying in the same places during the “regular” or “peak” season. Because there was no one around, we were also able to have extra nights on mooring balls for free or reduced prices.

DATES	LOCATION
7/18 – 8/10	Seafarer’s Marina
8/13	Intracoastal Waterway (ICW) Anchorages (Carolina Beach)
8/14-8/15	Beaufort, North Carolina
8/16	ICW (Tuckahoe Point)
8/17	ICW (Portsmouth)
8/19 – 8/20	Annapolis City Mooring
8/21 – 8/26; 9/4 – 9/5	Canton Anchorage
8/27 – 9/2	Anchorage Marina
9/6 – 9/7	Middle River Anchorage
9/8	Chesapeake City Dock
9/10 – 9/11	Sheepshead Bay
9/12	Statue of Liberty Anchorage
9/13; 11/17 – 11/18	Port Washington
9/14 – 9/16	Block Island
9/17	Plymouth Anchorage
9/18	Gloucester
9/19 – 9/22; 10/29 – 10/31	Portland Anchorage
9/23 – 9/29	Falmouth Mooring
9/30 – 10/3	Camden Lyman Morse
10/4 – 10/12	Belfast Marina Dock
10/13 – 10/15	Belfast City Dock
10/16	Herrick Bay Anchorage
10/17 – 10/18	Southwest Harbor Mooring
10/19 – 10/23	Somes Sound Anchorage
10/24 – 10/25	Rockland Town Mooring
10/26 – 10/28	Boothbay Carousel Marina
11/2	Kittery Mooring
11/3 – 11/4	Salem Mooring
11/5 – 11/7	Boston Waterboat Marina
11/8 – 11/9	Plymouth Town Mooring
11/10 – 11/13	Hadley Harbor Anchorage
11/14 – 11/15	Newport Mooring
11/21 – 12/8	Baltimore Harborview Marina

Fuel

The wind this season was not in our favor. Our first day offshore would be the perfect wind and then completely die for the rest of the time. We motored a lot more than expected but we had a goal to reach and places to be. Hopefully next year we can avoid spending so much with a more relaxed timeline.

• Total diesel filled: 878 gallons
• Total cost: $3,862 in fuel and tips ($788.22 per month)

DATE	LOCATION	COST PER GALLON (at time of purchase)
7/14	Bayshore Landing (Miami, FL)	$4.40/gal
8/11	Morningstar Marina (Jacksonville, FL)	$4.86/gal
8/13	Morningstar Marina (Southport, NC)	$4.55/gal
8/17	Coinjock Marina (Coinjock, NC)	$3.75/gal
9/6	Inner Harbor Marina (Baltimore, MD)	$4.82/gal
9/12	Liberty Landing Marin (Jersey City, NJ)	$4.10/gal
9/18	Safe Harbor Plymouth (Plymouth, MA)	$3.80/gal
10/15	City of Belfast Harbor (Belfast, ME)	$3.75/gal
10/29	PF Marina LLC (Portland, ME)	$3.77/gal
11/14	Goat Island Marina (Newport, RI)	$4.89/gal
11/21	Schaefers Marina (Chesapeake City, MD)	$4.05/gal

Transportation

We made the decision to keep our car and bring it up to Maine so we could have the ability to go inland and do some camping and hiking. We ended up playing leap frog with the boat and the car and leaving it at friends’ houses while we made it to the next stop. We could have survived without it, but it was nice to have the flexibility and explore outside of the small towns we stopped in, especially in Maine where the small towns had limited resources or only one Home Depot within an hour’s drive. When we got to a stop that made sense, Josh would go down to where we left the car (whether it be flying or bus) and would drive the car up.

• Total miles driven: 3,381 miles
• Total cost: $995 ($203.06 per month)
  • $502 in fuel
  • $200 rental car
  • $156 in shared rides (Lyft/Uber)
  • $88 in bus fares
  • $49 in flights (used points otherwise)
  • $32 in tolls