Merry Christmas

We hope everyone that follows our blog has a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

We have been working on the house almost non-stop since we returned in November. More than half of the interior has been painted, Eddie has repaired bad wood and painted the rest of the exterior. Wayne has also finally got the new tile down in the house bath. Somehow Carol also found time to decorate the yard and tree for the holidays and wrap presents.

The house will look better when we sell it that when we lived there. That seems to happen every time.

Our best to you and yours.

2006 Voyage North Statistics

Here is some data from the 2006 Voyage North (our trip to New England and back). We left Vero Beach, FL on July 2, 2006 and returned on November 6, 2006.


Notes:
- we also spent about $800 on groceries just before we left Vero Beach
- several of the dock nights were free (see the BLOG for specifics)
- some moorings were free: they are also indicated in the BLOG, and we enjoyed the wonderful hospitality of Merry & Willis Clifford during our month long mooring stay at The Eddy Marina
-we paid for 1 night's stay at a motel when we went to Acadia National Park (approximately $100)

We feel that the two biggest factors which had the most impact on keeping costs significantly lower were minimizing the nights that we stayed at marina docks and not eating out in restaurants (only one time did we eat out at what would be considered a higher end restaurant with a group of friends, and the bill for the three of us was about $90).

Obviously the price of diesel fuel was a big burden. When we left for the Bahamas in May we paid about $2.50/gal and didn't take on any more fuel until we were in NC, where we paid $2.66/gal., which we thought was a fair price at the time as we were seeing it even higher at other places. We paid $2.79 in Maine. When we last fueled up on the southbound trip, in Oriental, NC, we paid $2.23/gal, but prices were even lower at some other places; cruising friends got it for $1.99/gal, so it does pay to network and shop around, especially when you might be taking on 600 or 700 gallons (FLUKE holds just over 1000 gallons!).

Feel free to ask any questions you might have.

Since we have so much to do with the house and FLUKE, we haven't made any more cruising plans at this time. However, we all feel that we will be anxious to drop the dock lines as soon as we meet our present commitments. After all, time is flying, and we don't want to miss a favorable tide to another adventure.

Apparently Blogger doesn't handle tables very well so you will have to scroll down to see the data (2 tables).

Trip Statistics
Number of Days	128
Nights at Anchor	40
Nights on Mooring	72
Nights at Dock	12
Nights at Sea	3
Engine Hours	505.5
Diesel Fuel Burned	1567 gals
Statute Miles	3765
Nautical Miles	3278

Money Spent
1356 gal diesel fuel	$3535
Groceries	$1409
Eating out	$517
Docks and Moorings	$1669

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thanks -- wayne