Costs update…
Wanna buy a boat? Huh. I’ve said it before, a fool and his money…
There is a euphemism in boating refered to as the boat buck. It’s the equivalent of a thousand dollars. Want a new dodger? Slightly over a boat buck. A full enclosure? Call it 10 boat bucks. A new heater? Another boat buck. I’ve also heard boat actually stands for “break out another thousand.” Are we starting to get the picture?
I had entered into this adventure with the idea of buying a turn-key boat and not spending much until we had made the decision about our long-term relationship. Maybe just an anchor as a treat. Fool again I say.
So way back in April I had gone over some of the anticipated costs and then summarized expenditures to date (How Much So Far?), but, since we’ve spent a bunch more, I thought I’d cough up a brief update.
| 4 Trojan Batteries — Because the batteries had some bad cells and we are going to be wanting to live on the hook for days at a time. | $800 |
| Rocna 22 anchor — Because I want to have faith in my anchor. | $600 |
| Head Rebuild Kit — A small leak. I will do the actual repairs myself. | $75 |
| Paper charts — All the way up to the Broughtons. I like paper. Besides it’s still the law in Canada. | $600 |
| Sony Digital Receiver — All our music is digitized. A CD player that couldn’t hook up to an iPod seemed pretty stupid. | $80 |
| Boat Cards — For fun (see below). | $40 |
| Vinyl Lettering (installed) — Installation almost doubled the price, but I’ve screwed up vinyl before. Better to get it right the first time. | $500 |
| Fire Extinguishers — It was a rush and I didn’t have time to get the old ones recertified. | $125 |
| New Flares — Safety requirement. | $200 |
| Rebedding a leaking hatch — Not sure if this was a good expense or not but… | $380 |
| New masthead Nav Light — Sigh. | $100 |
| Temporary moorage at Granville Island — A boating Gotcha. You have to pay for the moorage at the repair yard. Tanstaafl. | $1500 |
| Skipper Delivery Charges — So we could save 1000s in BC sales tax. | $400 |
| A dinghy safety kit — It’s the law. | $50 |
| A new inflatable pfd for Leslie — It’s a comfort thing. | $150 |
| 3 new life jackets — For the dinghy, so we don’t have to use the inflatables and to replace the old scummy ones. | $120 |
| A new windex — So we can see which way the winds are blowing. | $140 |
| Wet Bilge Investigation — Because who likes a wet stinky bilge? | $160 |
| Engine check after overheat — This one ahould be obvious. | $325 |
There are a ton of small things I haven’t recorded, like the new queen sheets, a small cookie sheet, a LED reading lamp, non-skid cat bowls, a new litter box, a few microfiber towels, and even some new fender lines.
There are also a few things we want to get but we will leave until later, stuff like new docking lines ($120+) and new fenders ($50 each), another folding seat and of course some way to generate power. But the moneytree seems a bit bereft and Patience is starting to whack me upside the head cause she wants some attention.