Salty Podcast #66 ⛵️ Living on a Sailboat Moored in Key West: Stan Loveday's Story

Episode Transcript
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Capn Tinsley (00:04):
Good evening everybody.
Tonight's guest.
Tonight's guest is a sailor, anauthor and a retired fireman
and traded the firehouse lifefor life on the hook.
Stan Loveday lives at anchor ona sailboat called Southeast Up
Disorder, a great name in KeyWest.
With his wife he works at thehistoric Key West Bike Marina.

(00:25):
I've crossed paths with himmany times over the years at the
marina and he's always beenknowledgeable and very helpful
and carries a calm, pleasantdemeanor, which is nice, and
I've seen him be tested for that.
He's got a new book coming outin August 2025 called let's Buy
a Boat and Move to the Keys, orhow to Move to Key West and Not
Sink the Budget.
It's not out yet or I wouldhave a link included, but it's

(00:49):
coming and if anyone's figuredout how to do that, it's Stan.
Before we get underway, and ifyou like these sailing stories,
please consider liking andsubscribing.
It helps grow the channel andlet's see, let's see it really
helps grow the channel.
I'm your host, captain Tinsleyof Salmon Vessel.
Salty Abandoned a 1998 IslandPacket 320.
And this is the Salty Podcast,episode 66.

(01:13):
Please help me welcome StanLoveday.

Stan Loveday (01:16):
Good evening, ma'am.
How are you tonight?

Good evening.
How are you?
I'm doing great.

It's a nice balmy day here in Key West, a little
bit of light rain splattering inthe background, so you might
get a little cloudiness behindus, but that's a normal Key West
day.

Yes, and you are actually living on your boat in
the mooring field In Key West.
Well, good, well, I've gotquestions about you know the
logistics of all that, and wewant to talk about your book.
I really wanted to read itbefore, you know, you came on,
but you know that wasn't quitepossible because it's being

(01:52):
released.
What's the date?

It should be early August.
Amazon released.
They're very picky about earlyreleases and releases on data.
Amazon won't let you giveinformation out more than two
weeks prior to an early release.
That's a problem that we comeinto.
It's basically a step-by-stepguide to how to fly a boat and

(02:14):
move to the Keys and do exactlywhat I'm doing.

Okay, good, can I get you more squared in the
screen?
How about that?
You're a little closer to themic now.
I think that helps.
Yeah, because, yeah, the opticsgot to be good for all the
clips I'm going to do.
If you're going to beeverywhere, yeah, we're going to
try to, uh, we're going to tryto promote that book years, so
let's just go ahead and startoff.

(02:39):
I've got some questions here,but if you want to go off on a
tangent feel, feel free.
You're currently on the hook ora mooring ball.
I know the answer to that.
Tell us.
Most people might not know thecost difference between
anchoring, mooring ball and dock.
Since you work at a marina,you'd be great for that.

I can give you some ideas what the base is,
what most people come down to InKey West.
You can pull up in Key West anddrop an anchor anywhere in the
boundaries of Key West.
That's a free charge.
There's nothing, cost youanything.
Drop an anchor, spend a week, amonth, whatever in Key West on
anchor.
The two costs that you run intois what it costs you to come to

(03:19):
shore and park your dinghy forthe day or for the month and
what it costs you to buy ashower pass stuff like that.
That's a fixed number.
Typically you're looking at 15a day to come to key west,
anchor your boat out shore.
Come in with your dinghy aslong as it's under 13 feet in
total length, because the cityand the state has kind of a rule
, you know the dinghy's got tobe less than 13 foot.

(03:41):
Second thing is our showersthat they provide down the Key
West are not part of the normaldinghy docks because it keeps
the cost low for the people thatdon't need it.
It runs about $35 a week to geta pass for a couple.
Go to shore, take a showerevery day or three times a day,
they don't really care, butthey'll be able to come to shore
.

Okay, so that's $35 plus $15.

Right, so you're paying like $50 a day if you're
staying just a few days.
If you're here for a month,monroe County offers a free
pump-out service for your sewage, no charge.
It's all covered under taxdollars.
They don't charge you for it.
So if you're on that list ofbeing, if you're going to be
here for a few months, get onthe list.
It's a free service and you canbuy a monthly pass in the first

(04:26):
five days in the month for $100a month.
I'm sorry, 110 a month went upa few weeks back and that's
where the for the bathrooms orthe dinghy dock.
So the dinghy dock to park yourboat for a month is $110 okay,
for a month of the showers andthey don't limit it for a month
on.
The shower for a couple ishundred dollars.
So for you to park your boat,come to shore, take a shower

(04:48):
every single day.
It's about 210 a month okaythat's the cheapest.
You can do a lot of people.
If you're going to be here forseveral months, they opt for the
mooring field.
The mooring field is run by thecity called the city marina
garrison bite the mooring field.
There's 149 facilities out herefor the balls and it runs about

(05:09):
450 a month.
With that.
They give you access to laundryfacilities, they give you
access showers, car parking orscooter parking if you have nice
so it's a very cheap expense.
Now let's take that as okay.
You say 450 bucks.
Well, is that expensive?
No, a typical mooring.
If you went into a marina andsay I want to park my 40 foot

(05:31):
boat in your marina for a monthin the summer, you're going to
look at about $300, $3,000 amonth plus electric to park your
boat in Key West in a marina.
So what you would spend foreight months on a ball, you're
gonna spend in one month sittingin marina.

Sweet.

Most cruisers come down here.
They look at it and going Idon't want to live back in the
marina, I don't want to sit inthe marina, I want to be out
where the water is.
I don't need air conditioningout here.
I'm sitting here.
It's July 10th.
I'm sitting on top of my boat.
Yes, there's light sprinkledbehind me.
The average temperature outsideright now is about 84 degrees.
There's a nice 10 mile an hourbreeze.

(06:10):
It's comfortable, I'm notsweating, I'm not dying of heat
and I'm spending 450 bucks amonth sitting on a morning ball
with all these amenities, likesomebody was paying $3,000 a
month at a marina and coveringthe electric cost over and above
that, plugging in for your airconditioning right and it's hot
in the marina key west is hot inthe marine.

(06:32):
Yeah, if you're on a ball or onanchor offshore, it's about a
five degree temperaturedifference between where I'm at
right now and going a half mileinto shore.
Once you hit the shoreline,your temperature goes up at
least five degrees.
So yes, if you're in a morning,if you're in a marina, you're
gonna need air conditioning.
If you're in the morning ball,on a anchorage, you're not gonna
need the air conditioning andso you don't use air

(06:55):
conditioning at all we have acouple.
We have a 12 volt system we puton the boat for when it's really
really bad in the evenings,which is not that often.
We've been in key west nowcoming up on eight years, off
the grid, a lot of peoplelooking to go.
What does that mean?
We've been to a a dock to putour boat where we tied up in
eight years one time and thatwas in bimini about six years

(07:18):
ago I was.

That's one of my questions I was going to ask you
.
I remember you telling me thatright.

Most of the time, our boat either lives on an
anchor or on a mooring boat theboat is self-sufficient.
So once you understand thedifference between that, it
makes a huge difference on whatyou spend every day, every month
now, how long does it take youto travel from your boat to work
every day to the dinghy dock?
I from where I'm at.
I'm literally about 1.1 milesfrom the dinghy dock, from the

(07:44):
mooring field.
That's standard.
If you were anchored out youwere coming in to shore off, you
know, from anchorage or here inthe mooring field.
It takes me about nine minutesto get from my boat to shore
Nice, two and a half minutes onthe area where it's rough.
So it's blowing 30 out here.
You've got two and a halfthree-foot seas.
Yeah, I get about three minutesof rough weather before I get

(08:06):
close enough to shore whereeverything calms down.
Then I'm at, you know, idlespeed or there above, going into
the docks and everything else.

So it's not a bad ride for most of the cases which
you look into Right and so andalso might as well cover.
There's an upgrade at thedinghy dock if you want to pay
for a specific spot, right?

the.
The vantage is downtown at keywest bike.
Um, it's the city morning.
The city facility downtowngives you an option.
You can have general dinghydock where you squeeze in and in
the winter season we're goingto have 400 dinghies trying to
fight for the same square footed.
You know we've had three rowsdeep on dinghy.
However, they have have anoption for private thingy dots

(08:47):
where you have the same cleatevery day you come in.
You tie up on number 24, number12, whatever you tie up there
every day, he runs about $170 amonth.
Okay, so about?
$60 more a month more, 60 bucksmore than the general doc.
So yeah coming into a parkinglot won't go to Walmart.
I get a fight to get a spot.

(09:07):
Everything else you pull in, Igo.
I got front row parking everysingle day for an extra 60 bucks
a month.
We did it for two years.
While we're sitting here in themorning, it absolutely is
no-brainer.

And what do you do now?

I work for the city.
Right now it's a doc master.
I've been a doc master for kPipe for now going on five years
.
Basically, what that means is Ihelp everybody coming in,
whether they come in by a bigboat you know $25 million boat
or the $500, you know skipthat's sitting out there with
two people living on it tryingto eke out an existence in Key
West.

Right, and you've helped Salty Abandon too.

Salty Abandon has been there a few times.
It's absolutely wonderful tofollow.

Thank you.
Thank you for saying that.
Let me just show you thispicture.

This is the only picture I have of your boat
right here.
It's a 50-foot Irwin.
It was made in 1983.
We've been on the boat nowcoming up on 18 years.
We bought the boat while we'rein st pete, um.
We moved aboard in 2007 withtwo kids.
They were eight and ten twogirls that were 22 and 24 years

(10:17):
old and the two of us, we movedlock, stock and barrel from a
three bedroom, two bath houseinto a 50 foot sailboat.
Wow, people look at me and gowas it difficult?
No, if you know what you'redoing and you have an argument
about the next six months beforeyou decide to move aboard, it's
not bad.
We issued the two kids two uh,hard plastic totes and say

(10:40):
here's what you got, you canmove to the boat.
If not, I'm gonna be on shoreand they're looking at me going.
Dad, I'm like that's the way itworks, um, but no, it's.
It's not a difficult thing onceyou understand the logistics of
living on a boat well, here, itis right here.

I wish I had a closer picture, but it's, how
about brat?
Brat the cockatoo, is he stillwith you?

We lost him about two years ago.
Oh, I'm sorry it was a very sadstatement.
But no, he traveled the Bahamaswith us for one full season.
We spent almost six months inthe Bahamas.
He traveled with us.
He's been with us for 20-someyears.
We got him as a very smallchicken about two days old.
So cockatoos are veryparticular, they are very needy,

(11:23):
absolutely wonderful pet andstuff like that.
But we lost him about about twoyears ago I'm sorry to hear
that no big deal, like I said,yeah um, a lot of stuff.
People look at us going well,how did you work getting a boat
with?
You know two kids, two birds,you know two of you.
It's it's finding.
The first thing you gotta do isfind the right boat for you.

(11:45):
You'll hear people talk aboutwell, I want to buy a boat, I
want to fix it up, flip it.
This isn't houses, people,You're not buying a house,
flipping it, making more moneybuying another boat.
You need to find the boat youwant to live on and it doesn't
matter if you're going to be onit six months, six years, 60
years.
You want to find a boat and youfix it one time.
The biggest mistake people makeis believing that I can buy a

(12:08):
boat, make changes, sell it formore money than I spent on it
and make enough to buy the nextboat.
It never works that way.

Melanie I don't know if you know Melanie
Sunshine.
Neal she yeah, she's writtenbooks too.
She grew up on a boat.
She said she's a broker nowshe's like it's not an
investment.
She tells all of her clientsthis is maybe investment in your
happiness or your.

You buy the boat that you want to be comfortable
on, and if it's bigger than whatyou want right now, you buy the
boat to be comfortable livingon it there's a very different
and one of the terms I go overon the book is what's the
difference between camping on aboat and living on a boat?
If you have to wet a washclothto wash your face and take a
shower at the end of the daywith a washcloth, you're not

(12:53):
living on a boat, you're campingon a boat.
Wait, say that again If you buya boat and to take a shower you
have to wet a washcloth, wipeyour body with it.
You're not really taking ashower.
You're camping on the boat,You're not living on it.
Yes, A true person that's livingon a boat, that spends time on

(13:14):
it.
They take normal hot showers.
They take normal showers.
They do normal dishes.
They're not scrimping on waterbecause they've designed a boat
and built the boat around theirneeds.
They're not scrimping on waterbecause they've designed a boat
and built the boat around theirneeds.
People have to understand.
If you want to camp on a boatfor a couple of weeks, you only
got a chance to go out two,three weeks a year.
That's one thing.

(13:35):
If you're really wanting tomove on the boat, power water
and hot water is a big thing onthe boat.

You know what it sounds like.
You're describing what you like, but also what your wife likes.

Happy life.

That's the secret.

right, that's a statement you hear and this is
what I would accept.
Camping she wouldn't accept asbeing the same.

Right.

Again, having been on the boat for 18 years, we've
been what they call off-gridmeans we're not tied to dock, we
don't have power coming in.
We've been off-grid for eightyears, living in Key West.

Okay, so tell people what is it on your boat
that makes it where you can liveoff-grid.

Three things that comes into play.
First thing is power.
You have to have power to runyour lights and run your
refrigeration, run your freezer.
If you don't have enough powerto do this stuff, you you're
sitting around with a candle onthe table.
That doesn't work.
Solar and wind is two keyelements.
Living on a boat, we carryenough solar, enough wind, even

(14:41):
when it's overcast, you know badweather and stuff like that.
We make power every single day.
That doesn't cost me burningdiesel or generator gas to make
the batteries recharge.
Solar is number one.
If you have enough solar power,you can do anything about it.
We're not talking aboutcovering the deck and every
service and solar panels.
The changes in solarcapabilities over the last five
years is amazing.

Now, how much solar do you have?

We run about 1300 watts of solar.
That's four panels.
Basically we run three 340 wattpanels covering the speeds of
the boat.

Okay.

With that panels I'm able to run a water maker
which makes about six gallons anhour.
Off the solar I'm able tocharge my batteries, do all my
AC or my refrigeration, myfreezer, all my lights and
everything.

And you have lithium.
Do you have lithium no?

I still have AGM.

Okay.

I'm still old school.
I've not been converted to thelithium mindset.
There's a lot of issues withthat.

Right.

All the stuff that comes in.
It's very expensive.
You have separate controllers.
Agm still works for 90% of theboaters out there.
If you talk to most of mostpeople coming in the marinas the
the liability of the lithium,the changes on their insurance
coverage.
That's out there.
When you put in lithium it'snot worth the change.
Yet two, three years from now,when they change the format of

(15:56):
the lithium to a little bitsafer compound, it'll be very
much different.

It's actually gotten safer in the last few
years.

It has has gotten safer and in the next three
years you're going to see achemistry change that will make
it much more so.

Okay, that's good info.

So I'm running like 800 amp hours of batteries
on about 1,300 watts of solar.

Okay, so tell us how you.
I'm sorry, I didn't mean tointerrupt, that's all right, go
ahead.
How do you handle waste?

We do normal garbage collection for the you
know our day-to-day waste.
So we have a garbage can here,we bag it up, we take it short.
When we go in there In the Keysthey do pre-pump out for your
sewage.
So we do a two-step process forour shower systems and the
toilets.
When we take a shower and we donormal showers, we don't you
know you don't do the wet water,you know wet cloth.

(16:48):
We do a normal hot water shower.
It recovers it into about a sixgallon holding tank.
That holding tank we use toflush the toilets.
So we flush the toilets withfresh water, not salt water, so
a you don't get the smell comingoff salt water when you flush
it, and b I'm recycling the samewater I'm taking showers with
to flush the toilet.

I just said fill up your, fill up your tank.
Yeah, right, and that's verysmart, did you?
Did you come up with that, oris that a thing I've never heard
of that um, a lot of people.

When you start looking at recovery times and
stuff like that, or you look atthe system down in the keys
where you have a zero jet, startindustry right out here.
You try to recover every bit ofwastewater to reuse.
Okay it's a very clean water,other than some soap products, a
little bit, you know,byproducts, dirt from your body.
It's a very clean system.
You recover that in the sixwater six gallon tank and you

(17:40):
flush your toilet with it.
A you eliminate the smellcoming off the salt water when
you flush your toilet with it.
A you eliminate the smellcoming off the salt water when
you flush it.
B I can add deodorant into thetank from any point and the
water that you flush gives itthat nice little blue tint so
you don't get any smell from it.
And I'm saving the recoveringthe water to dual use it.
So smart, that is so smart, yeah, and so how often do you come

(18:04):
in for water we bring with thewater maker?
Our normal pattern is we makewater about every day on the
boat.
We run a 12-volt water maker.
Spectra 200T is an absolutegodsend for most crews.

Is that a small one, or is that how it's?

a small one.
It's rated at 8 gallons an hour.
We run it off of solar.
It runs about 6.3 gallons anhour production.
It just runs regularly.
Right, it runs regularly.
I I'm able to run that you know, from about 11 to 3 every day.
On the timer it makes you know36, 40 gallons a day 11 to 3.
okay, during the sun, sun hours,sometimes it's not.

(18:41):
Your batteries are already fullso you don't have to.
You know, try to run agenerator, run the water maker.
You know, if you make 40gallons a day, the average
cruiser looks at you.
Goes, you use 40 gallons.
Today they live on about fourgallons a day, right, typical
cruiser?
And I'll show you one.
They depend on these fivegallon, six gallon blue jugs.

(19:05):
You'll hear people talkingabout it going.
I've got to drag four of thesein every day.
Fill them up, drag them back tomy boat, fill up the tank so I
can take a shower, I can dodishes I've seen him doing that,
yeah funk, funk, funk.
You'll hear him every morning.
You hear people screaming,cussing.
You know cat left.
You know, knock the water jugon.
Somebody left ran the shower alittle bit too long.
I'm out of water.

(19:25):
That's one of the statements inthe book was how do you get
away from doing this?
Yeah, the fact of living on theboat.

Well, how much is this one that you have, this
water maker?

The Spectra we had and we bought it literally.

I do know that brand.

I do know that brand.
We bought it nine years ago.
It's one of the top threeindustry brands out there.
There's other ones there thatdo higher production, you know a
little bit a little cheaper.
But what you want to look at isis it bulletproof?
Do I have to stop and adjustthings every morning?
Do I have to do something?
Do I have to be here when itstarts up?
We spent about $6,500 on thewater maker, probably the third

(20:04):
most expensive piece ofequipment we bought on the boat.
Number one would probably havebeen the water maker.
Number two was the dinghy inthe motor.
Number three was the solar andstuff like that.

And where did you put it?
Is it like permanently attachedor is it like a it's
permanently attached down belowbelow the sink.

It's square footage.
You're talking of an area aboutthree by one.
It's a very small footprint.
Know for what it is so it'shidden.

It's okay.
I was thinking about getting alittle portable one, but that
sounds very doable the rain mansare the portable ones.

They run off a honda 2000 generator.
They're very capable, they're ahigh production.
You'll run 18, 20 gallons anhour.
Wow.
Most people don't run it forfive or six hours and then they
have to pickle it.
So you put solution in to makeit stable.
And people don't run it forfive or six hours and then they
have to pickle it.
So you put solution in to makeit stable and they don't run it
again for a week, ten days, byrunning this one, the spectra,
on a 12-volt system.
It runs about nine amps so I'mputting out 35 amps an hour off

(20:58):
my soul.
So I'm running nine on this onthe water maker for four hours
when everything else is full.
So I'm using the energy thatwouldn't be going anywhere to
make water that I can use allday long.

Okay, now I'm thinking, I'm thinking for my
boat.
That's really the only thing Imean if I'm going to go cruising
and be really off the grid.

Here's the analogy I give most people.
You're in the middle of theBahamas.
You're in this quiet littleanchorage.
There's nobody around for 70miles.
The nearest place to getgasoline is 80 miles down the
island.
You're sitting there.
You've been here a week.
You're loving the place.
Your water gets a little low.

You don't want to leave.

I don't want to leave and do I want to use the
gasoline I brought?
I've got 10 gallons of gas incans.
Do I want to use it to makewater?
I don't want to use it on mydinghy to go where I want to go.
If I can run my water maker offthe solar, then it costs me
nothing to do that.
I'm not burning dinosaurs tomake water.
I'm not burning diesel orgenerators.
You know time to make water.
I can run it off the solar.

(22:01):
Why would I not want to do that?
It's a zero impact cost on yourbottom dollar line item and all
this is in the book.

Right, all this is in the book.
This is great stuff.
This is just great, um okay.
So, uh, you already kind ofcovered a couple things here.
Um, we talked about the dinghydock.
Uh, what's the hardest part ofliving at anchor that most
people don't expect, or mooring?

Even the anchor dinghy, it doesn't matter.
It's your day-to-day travelfrom your boat back to shore.

That's what I thought.

One thing you have to look at is if you live in
town, if it's raining outside,you dart from your house to your
car.
You've got a 15, 20 second dartover the car.
If you're living offshore,whether it's on a mooring ball
on anchor or anything else youhave the time you get from
inside your boat into yourdinghy.
Now you've got a 5 to 15 minuteride to shore.

(22:58):
Three things are very importantthe size of your dinghy.
It's like living in the themountains.
If you have a yugo living innebraska, fine, you have a yugo
living in anchorage alaska.
You're not going to getanywhere right, he is very
important getting back and forthfrom here and what do you have?

what do you have?

we have a west marine 11 foot dinghy with a 25
horsepower motor oh, wow handlestwo people.
The motor weighs 137 pounds,the dinghy weighs 155 pounds, so
empty weight with the two ofthem about 300 pounds.
But it'll handle four peoplewith bad weather with no problem

(23:37):
whatsoever.

Yeah, because you've got the wind and you've
got bad weather.

Rough weather, so the dinghy will be able to get
in and out of shore withouthaving to worry about breaking
down.
The second thing to understandis it's going to rain in Florida
, no matter where you're at.
It's going to rain one out offive days.
And whether the weather's bador not bad or storming, then you
have to be conscious about thatpart of it.
So the travel time from yourboat to shore most people, are

(24:06):
less than 15 minutes.

Okay, and John Key West John.
People know on this channel.
If anybody watches, they knowwho he is.
I call him Key West John JohnFletcher.
He would tell me stories aboutsomeone coming in a long ride in
and, oh, they forgot theirwallet ride in and, oh, they

(24:29):
forgot their wallet.

Yep, the second thing you want to add on any
boat, if you even think about isa very good dry bag you want to
be able to put your phone in it, your tablet in it, your wallet
in it, and you never get offthe boat without that dry bag.
It's like thinking about yougrab your keys, everything else,
you go.
Where's the drive bag?

everything goes in so you got to train yourself
not to forget anything yes,because it's not like walking
back up the door going.

I forgot my keys at the front of the door.
I'm 15 seconds down the parkinglot.
You're sitting there 15 minutes, sure?
You know crap.
I left my key to get in thegate, or my key to get on the
car, or you know, my wallet'ssitting on boat.
Now I'm 15 minutes back outthere and 15 minutes back and
you're late for work or late formeeting somebody, friends,
whatever.

Right, oh, no, once a week.
For those who don't know,that's Mrs.
What is her first name?
Christina, that's right.
Christina is chiming in in thebackground there.
We'd love to see her on cameraif she wants, or we could just.
You could just talk from thebackground.

(25:32):
Oh, there she is.
How you doing, hello, so it'sreally cool.
I've talked about it on thischannel many times.
I've met so many.
You know, I go all the way fromAlabama all the way to the Keys
, and so I'm in marinas all thetime, and there's so many guys
that I run into that are livingon their boats and all they want
is a woman to come and livewith them, and it's just hard to

(25:57):
find what did she say Happy?
wife, happy life.
But a lot of women wouldn't dowhat you're doing there,
Christina.

Christina Loveday (26:05):
No, no, no.
I mean, I grew up in small townIllinois.
We had a lot of challenges inthe small town with, you know,
power water.
They used propane, the bigpropane tank in the yard.

Oh, you were rural .

Yes.

Okay.

About 1,300 people, 1300 people, wow, so
this is nothing.

No, yeah, no now do you have two dinghies.
How does that work?

we started with two.
We had one, we bought a seconddinghy.
What we found was the headachewith the second dinghy was not
worth it believe it or not.
You know we looked at.
You know we bought a wholesecond dinghy was not worth it,
believe it or not.
We bought a whole second dinghy, second motor.
She teaches special ed at alocal school here.
We settled in Key West afterCOVID.
We paused for a little bit oftime.
She went back teaching specialed.

(26:56):
I got sucked into working themarina downtown.

I made him go back to work.

It's got to be some good city benefits.
There it is.

But look at it, going the logistics of two
dinghies and then tying them upto your boat is the second
problem.
You know most people look at itand go, well, it's just another
item.
No, it's a whole secondenvironment.
You look at, how do I keep mydinghy safe when the weather's
bad?
If I tie it to the side, theboat's bouncing around.
Safe when the weather's bad ifI tie it to the side, the boat's
bouncing around hold on windowopen, oh back so got some rain

(27:29):
coming.
Yeah, we've got a couple smalllines that come through here.
So one of the things and thisis one of one word advice for
all the people listening allright tip of the day tip of the
day.
If you live on your boat,anytime you decide to get off
the boat, never, ever, leave awindow open on top down right
covered with a cover.
I guarantee you'll come backthree hours later and it'll be

(27:52):
this one rainstorm will come outof nowhere and you'll be
sleeping in a wet bed and you'llbe.
You'll be on shore panickingyou'll look at the boat and
going.
We left the open.
It's raining like a monsoon outthere.
It hasn't rained in five daysand it's raining right over the
boat.

Yeah.

Anytime you leave a window open.

Stressful.
Yeah, and this is all in thebook, I hope.
Yeah, these are all great tips.
Okay, provisioning how do youhandle provisioning?
How do you handle provisioning?

when we first decided to take off cruising.
Now understand, we spent 10years at the dock.
We spent 10 years prepping theboat in St Pete.
We're at the St Pete okay.
I know, I've been there.
It's a very nice marina.
We spent the last year and ahalf packing the boat full of
food.
We could have gone two and ahalf years never touched land,

(28:49):
didn't need water, didn't needanything.
We had everything on the boat.
I love it.
Then you get someplace like theBahamas.
We pulled ashore in the Bahamasand five out of seven nights we
ate in town.
We visited the locals, we wentto the local restaurants.
We had food on this boat thatcould have, you know, taken us
two and a half three years toever eat.
I still have supplies we put onthis boat eight years ago.

(29:12):
I look back and go.
Yeah, we overdid it abouttwofold more than anything
needed.
We still have toothpaste inplaces.
We still have deodorant inplaces.
We packed away enough rice thatcould have fed half of South
Africa with the rice we put inand hopefully coffee.
Oh.

I had coffee, she had coffee.

Oh yes, so one of the keys you look at is and this
has been talked about in about100 books If you don't eat it on
a normal day, don't buy it.
To buy it as a provision Ifyou're not eating sardines, why
would you buy sardines?
If you don't eat canned ham,why would you buy 10 cans of
canned ham if you never eat itMakes sense.

(29:54):
A lot of it is.
What is your normal dietaryneeds?
What do you normally eat?
You know I'm a very much meatand potato person.
I like pasta, I like rice.
I get eat rice 15 times a dayand not blink.
Her, on the other hand, goesabout.
The third day we had rice.
She goes.
There's something more than outthere than rice.
I'm going.
I'm happy with the rice.
She goes.
No, I'm doing that.

So do you, do you keep a car in town?

we have a car in town and this is one of the
advantages of being in a morningfield um key west.
The most expensive item to havein Key West is a car.
Parking in Key West is about$30 a day.
You park your car downtown in aparking lot, isn't it?
$40 at the marina right there$30 to $40, depending on where
you find a spot to put it.
Yeah, the mooring field givesyou a spot to park your boat,

(30:41):
gives you a spot to park yourdinghy and it gives you a
parking spot for one car for theentire month for that 450 bucks
.
Wow, that car spot in key westis a two to three hundred dollar
a day, a two to three hundreddollar a month spot.
So if you look at the advantageof that and again, the island's
small, the typical downtownarea is a one by two island.

(31:02):
You can walk most of the islandwithout ever needing a car.
You right grocery stores, abike like swindig, see all this
stuff down here with an uberride or a, you know, taxi ride.
It's not expensive.
But if you want to do explorearound stuff like that, a car is
nice but parking in in thenormal areas is difficult well,
you want to know how I provisionwhen I'm there or any marina

(31:24):
Sure Publix delivery.
I love Uber.

Eats.

Uber Eats yes.

Uber Eats, although the DoorDash service is
not great in Key West.

It's Key West?
No, they can't read thedirections.

Let's go back and talk about coffee.

What did she say?

Let's talk about coffee.

Let's talk about coffee.
All right, I love coffee.
I'm drinking some coffee righthere.

I'm a Starbucks-aholic, mm-hmm.
So you know who we're going totake off and we're going to have
.
I couldn't just make a pot ofcoffee on the boat because we
weren't going to have the powerfor that.
I had to figure out how to makecoffee and what kind of coffee
to take with me to the Bahamas.
So I bought a percolator, Ibought a French press and I

(32:16):
bought an espresso machine, allto use on the stove.
So for about three monthsbefore we took off I was
experimenting on what kind ofcoffee can I make on the boat
that I'm going to actually drinkand I can fix on the stove.
So you love coffee.

Which is propane right?
Which is propane?
Which is?

propane on a flame stove.
So, like I said, I had a car atschool, starbucks, you know.
I had all the power on the dock.
When you leave the dock you'vegot to look at the power for
coffee.

So, I had a.

German and sometimes I did the French press
.
Sometimes I did the espresso alittle on the stove and
sometimes I did the percolator.
So you've got to figure outwhat you can make and how to
make it and what you can, whatwould you?

what you?
I, I use my little keurig andum it's.
I've got lots of power too, notas much as you.
I have about two, three,seventy five watt panels right
and I, it handles it.
It handles it, it uses a lot ofpower.

That little care, but perfect coffee on the boat,
but I work every day, so I meanduring the school year yeah
summer recovery this is stuffwhen you first and this is one
of the advantages coming to,like the keys when you first.
You make when you buy a boat,get everything set.
Well, we're going to thebahamas.
No, what you want is aboutthree to four months sitting in

(33:42):
the keys to race.
You can park down here.
You're still close enough toAmazon Park.
You know, west Marine, all thisstuff to fix the stuff that
you're gonna break.
The first three months You'reliving off the hook.
You know people looking go.
Well, living on the dock issame as living anchored off.
No, it's a whole differentchange by giving you that three
to four months of actually usingthe stuff that you want, to see

(34:05):
what works and what doesn't onanchor makes a huge difference
and you're sure to happen.
Repairs happen and you're stillin the key, you're still in the
states where you can get theparts, you get the stuff, get
the supplies and you actuallywork through the problems that
you would normally not see.
When we first bought the boatand we were getting ready, we

(34:25):
bought a small dinghy that was,you know, like an eight foot
dinghy with a three horse motor.
You know, we thought it wasgreat.
I came down to visit a friendand we went through one little
channel.
I'm going yeah, that dinghy isnot going to work for anything
down here.
And the first time you look atit, going, what are you talking
about?
It works fine up there.
You don't have corn, have notcurrents, you're not fighting
with bad weather, not fightingwith three extra people on the

(34:47):
boat that you don't normallyhave.
So stuff like that that youexperience down here gives you a
chance to look at your whatworks and what doesn't.
That's great advice what'd yousay?

go visit our friends who had a boat here in
key West and we will see howthey were doing things and we'll
make a list.
Here's my original list.
Oh, okay, well, I'm not doingthat.

Well, that's a great idea.

Oh, that's a better idea.
So you learn what they weredoing and what you are willing
to do and or want to do in yourboating life.
So we learned a lot just comingdown and hanging out with them
for three or four days on howthey were doing things, how I
want to do things and a lot ofthat I've built into the book.

So to explain, when you look at someone asks
you well, what kind of ding you?
What do you look for lights atnight?
How do you find your boat afterdark?
We went through a lot of thatto explain.
You.
Come out at night.
You know what do you look forlights at night?
How do you find your boat afterdark?
We went through a lot of thatto explain.
You come out at night.
You know.
You've been in town all day.
It's right at sunset weather'smoving in, rain starts falling.
How do you pick your boat outof 350 boats sitting out there
at anchor?
We talk about that.

(35:57):
We talk about how to find yourboat when the weather's not good
.
You know, two o'clock in theafternoon I can drive to my boat
without blindfold and knowwhere my boat's at.
Take that same thing at eighto'clock at night, when the
weather moving in, you got asquall line coming across.
How do you pick your boat outof 250 boats out there?
Be able to go to your boatwithout driving for 15 minutes
going.
Well, it should be there, nope,it should be there, nope.

(36:18):
And you driving back and forthand you never see the boat.
So what's your secret?
Secret?
One of the things, one of thelittle hints I give people is
everybody shines a spotlight atthe hull of the boat.
You have all these boats linedup.
The boats blend behind oneanother, but what they fail to
look at is, on a sailboat, youhave this 50, 60 foot bass
sticking up in the air.
What we did is about 40 feet upin the air.

(36:39):
We took some of the soullessgrade reflective tape you have
white and red.
You can wrap around the top ofthe mast somewhere up there with
a couple of bands.

Tip of the day.
Another tip of the day.

You can take a spotlight from a half a mile
away and hit one of thosereflective bands, and I can take
my boat over a half a mile awaywithout ever knowing where the
boat is, just by shining thelight in the air above the base
of the boat.

What kind of flashlight is this?

We above the base of the boat.
What kind of flashlight is this?
We bought a Home Depot $9.95flashlight.
We bought a West Marine $30 one.
We've done the same thing.
It's because of the grade ofthe reflective tape that you're
using makes a difference whatyou see back Now.
The second thing we did on ourboat since we've been down here
and we did it in the Bahamas iswe put a set of LED lights on

(37:26):
the bimini top.
Everybody's got colors andeverything else.
We bought a set of $20 lightsthat change color all night long
.
They draw very low amperage.
So I'm sitting out here in themiddle of night.
Everything's dark.
You see this one boat going redgreen blue, red green blue, red
green blue and that's my boat.
Seeing this great idea Betweenthe reflective tape and the

(37:46):
light up top, if the lightsaren't working, but the lights
changing colors, I can come outof the Key West area where the
mooring field has got the dinghydock.
It's a three-quarter mile rideto my boat and I can see the
reflective lights changingcolors on my boat three-quarters
of a mile away.

Wow, those lights are $22 on amazon right now.

yes, I have, you know, those little, the little
strip lights, yep and other umactually have gotten to the
point where they'll use us as abeacon going that light is there
, so I'm three boat rows, sowhen we happen to forget to turn
them on or we turn them off, ohlook, is that a kitty that's
one of the cats on the boat, ohhi billy, oh I'm.

I'm gonna be bringing two of my cats this
time, so that they've never beenon the boat, but I've been
taking them in the van to try toget ready for it well, this is
billy he's, he's almost sevenhe's been.
What's his name?
Buoy, what a great name.
So, yeah, yeah, he's been tothe Bahamas.

He's been with us for seven years.
He's a boat cat.

Let me see that face.
I can't quite.
I see whiskers and ears.
Oh my gosh.
Hey baby.
Oh goodness, I'm the old man.
Very sweet, yeah, I have mylist ready.
There's actually more of achecklist to get the cats into

(39:07):
the bomb than the boat.

Yes, there is Well also cat litter.

Cat litter.

yeah, people look at you know, and this is stuff
that when you start going from ahouse or an apartment moving to
the boat, you have to figureout what's the cat litter to do
it Right, tell me.
Typical cat litter is your claycat litter.
It spreads everywhere.
The sand, the sand and stufflike that gets everywhere.
You'll be stepping on it in themiddle of the night.

(39:33):
Nobody wears shoes down below.
You might wear them up top, butget down below where the cats
are at, step on it going ow, cat, you're a mess.
So there's a couple of systemsout there that use a ceramic
pellet and a pad system.

Yes.

It doesn't spread.
It spreads not as bad as theother stuff, Right, but the pads
absorb the urine and keeps theodor down, stuff like that.
We bought all this stuff and wetried multiple different types
and in the book I'll leave alink on the backside for some of
of the stuff.
But a lot of the pelletized catsystems will use a separate pad

(40:09):
for the urine.

Is a very much advantage for people living on
boats okay, so so what is thebrand that worked for you?

it's worked very well.
We've had it for what?
What is it what?
What brand the Breeze?
Breeze Breeze B-R-E-E-Z systemcat litter.

Okay, I got to look into that because that
saves a lot of you don't have tohave the big bags of litter.
You don't have the big catlitter bags.

you don't have to keep throwing away.
You know you scoop the litterout of it and you take change
pads With one cat.
We change it once a week With,you know, two cats.
We got three right nowtemporarily, so we change it
about every three days.

Okay.

All right, some people don't understand looking
forward.
Once you're in the island youpay to get rid of garbage.
It's a luxury up here.
You go to the dumpster andthrow away three bags of garbage
.
Nobody cares.

Down there you're looking at five to eight bucks a
bag every time you take a bagwow, sure, and you got to pay
for water down there and you gotto pay for water, so all this
pays off the difference savingon the amount of garbage you
produce by cat and stuff likethat other stuff.

It all adds up in time and money for making it
easier for you to go places goodto know.

Hey, we got a lot of people watching and we'd love
to this.
This is an interactive podcast.
This guy's a wealth ofknowledge.
If you have questions, go ahead.
I'll put them up on the screenand Stan can answer them.
We'd love to get someparticipation.
Absolutely, and I definitelywant to look into this thing
before I come down there withthe litter, because if I use one

(41:43):
big one, like I use in my van,it has to be emptied every two
days and it's cumbersome tocarry all that litter.

We get about a month out of the set of pellets.

Okay, all right, good to know.
Another tip of the day of theset of pellets.
Okay, all right, good to know.
Another tip of the day, okay,have you ever doubted the safety
or sustainability of thislifestyle?
I want to hear what both of youhave to say about that.

If you build it right and you set it up right,
safety is a very standardstatement, but if your boat is
capable and you plan ahead,safety is not a big deal.
We've been on the boat, like Isaid, 18 years.
We've been off-grid, coming upon eight.
We have gone off the boat, yes,when the weather's gotten too
bad, not so much because wedon't feel comfortable on the

(42:30):
boat, but because either thepeople we had with us or the
grandkid that was with us, weopted to stay in shore for two
or three days when the weatherwas too bad.

What about the cats?

The cats.

Or the.

We bought them in twice Both of them were
hurricanes.
Okay, only because we didn'tleave them on the boat
unattended.
Now, having said that, we run aset of cameras on the boat,
that we use Starlink.
For people that have notexperienced Starlink before,
starlink is a game changer onthe boating industry.
Yeah, people have notexperienced Starlink before.
Starlink is a game changer onthe voting industry.
I'm able to monitor my boat1,000 miles away.

(43:03):
I can look at the cameras, Ican look at the bilge pump
counts, I can look at theanimals on the boat.
I can look at my connections tothe anchor or the mooring ball
from wherever I'm at.
We just spent three days in theBahamas.
We took one of theMargaritaville cruises over the
bahamas.
We weren't here at the boat.
I have cameras that monitor myconnection to the mooring ball.
I have monitors connectionswith my bill's pump counters.
I've monitored the cats andthat, and they're two-way

(43:25):
interactive.

I can talk to the cameras, and the cameras
are 39 a piece yeah, we'retalking about more like we
invest in great lines like thedyneema is a great line to
connect to your boat and then tothe mooring ball that's a
safety backup, backup.
So if something breaks loose,like during Irma, it wasn't the

(43:49):
mooring balls that broke, it wasthe lines, and or the cleats.
The lines were okay.
So if we like heel, dive downand he'll attach the Dyneema
line to below the mooring ball.
So if our lines break, if ourcleats break, whatever we have
the Dyneema attached to is notgoing to break.

(44:12):
The Dyneema is not going tobreak if the ball breaks loose.

So you always look at the secondary, you look at
other options.
If I want to be safe my normallines, we replace them once a
year.
So in the last four years we'velived on a mooring ball here in
key west.
So once a year I take the linesI've used for the last year.
I throw them away, I give themaway to friends, I you know
which lines, all of your, I meanany lines going from the boat

(44:37):
to the mooring ball.

Okay, okay.

There are three strand, three strand nylon,
because they're a stretch line.
Yeah, we also use a.
Like she said, we use a backupDyneema.
So if everything else fails,you know the ball fails, my
cleats fail, my boat's not goingto leave more than about 15
feet from where it's tied atright now.

Yeah, I was there on my boat right after Irma and
I saw all the boats that wereeverywhere on Christmas Tree
Island sunk up on the rocks.
It was crazy and you were there.

You were there, we were there.
We were here three weeks afterIrma.
We were in St Pete during IrmaOkay, yeah, so five weeks after
Irma.
So basically, but what welooked at, even day-to-day you
know we've been through severaltropical storms here.
You know close calls we look atday-to-day.
We look at how do I make theboat safe today, how to make it

(45:29):
safe tomorrow, the lines you useconnecting your boat to the
ball or to your anchor.
You know we replaced the entireanchor system and all the chain
and that after so many years,knowing that it's, it's what
your boat lives on.
If I drop an anchor I don'twant stuff that putting down to
fail.
So of all the things you lookat, the lines you're connected
with the anchor you drop toshore or drop to the bottom

(45:51):
that's the stuff that your boatlives and dies by as far as
though we make sure we have twoor three lines, or four lines
coming from the mooring ball tothe boat.

If we know there's a storm coming up, we
add extra lines and we attachthem at different points further
, at midship or even the aft ofthe boat, so that we have more
than one point of lines attachedfrom the mooring ball to the
boat.
In case the front cleats breakor the mid cleats break, we have

(46:22):
something else attached toother cleats.

So as far as safety, goes, you're looking at
redundancy, what kind of um youknow I've heard of that.
I mean, my boat is prettystrong with the cleats, but what
kind of boats have you seenthat where the cleats broke?

most year 30 to 45 foot boats.
If you look at the design ofthem, they were they.
The cleats are Most of your 30to 45 foot boats.
If you look at the design ofthem, they were.
The cleats are bolted to thedeck or through the you know tow
rail.
There's no backing plates.

Okay.

It happens on heavy and it's not the wind to
get it.
You know you get the waveaction and the jerking of the
boat.
So you get, you know you.
You know you get a 40 mile anhour wind.
It's not a big deal.
You play, make it a 60 mile anhour wind in a four foot chop.
That boat is yanking, so everytime it yanks it's trying to
pull the same bolts out of thedeck.

(47:08):
Yeah, number one thing thatmost insurance company looks for
is is the cleats on your deckthat's holding you to your ball.
Do they have a backing plate tothem?
and I guess it's certain brandsthat have that right brands have
that, that most your betterbrand and it's not.
And it can be specific.
You know, we've seen, you knowshe knows that don't have
through multi cleats.
I've seen, you know Islandpackets that built like boat

(47:29):
will come apart for you.
Rip a cleat off the deck right.
Some of them.
The people go back and ifyou're living on the boat,
you're there and it's not aweekend boat.
You're not talking about guythat comes down for three weeks
of the summer, can come to KeyWest anchor out he, his boat is
not going to get changed.
The people that looking to liveon the boat long term we're
talking one year, three year,ten years, whatever they look at

(47:50):
it going.
How do I make the boatsurvivable, anything I go into?
Yeah your anchoring system, youfleet systems, you know stuff
like that.
How do you tighten the boatdown so it's not getting wet
that stuff?
You look at a longer-term basisand are you?

you're a handy guy , you can be to a point.

Okay, technically you become a jack-of-all-trades,
we're gonna go.
You tend to be a little bit ofelectrician, a little bit of
plumber, a little bit ofmechanical.
So you learned about inside nowthe longer on the boat.
And this is where thedifference between buying a boat
, keeping it three years,selling it, buying another boat.
You never learn the boat inside.
Now, right, yeah, you know Ican look at my boat and I can

(48:30):
pull up to it coming in and go.
Oh, we're listening a littlebit to the right.
The water tanks must be almostempty.
Get turn the water maker ontonight because boats tilted a
little bit.
They go.
Well, how can you tell I?
Because the boat sits this wayand if it's sitting a little off
or it's sitting a little nosehigh, I know things are not
right.

Right, okay, yeah, this is all good stuff, stan.
This is all good stuff Becausethere's so many people, as you
know from working at a marinaand me just from park being
going into marinas everywhere.
People walk by and what do theysay?
Oh, we want to do this, we wantto.
We've oh, have you ever sailedbefore?
No, well, what.
What size boat are you thinkingabout getting?

(49:09):
Oh, 50, you know, they don'teven they've never even owned a
boat yet, and uh.
So there's so many people outthere dreaming of this yeah,
here's what we did.

We went to boat shows.
We went to the saint pete boatshow, we went to the good one we
went to the fort lauderdaleboat show and we started on a 36
foot sailboat.
We knew we wanted sail, so thenwe started 36.
I'm like that's nope too small.

I have two children, two girls yeah, yeah
feel each other if they're inthe same cabin seems a little
tight with all those people, soI need three cabins minimum.

All right, so I'm I cook a lot.
I love my kitchen.
If the layout's not right, 36was not big enough, so with the
38 you literally go to the boatshow and you start at 36 foot
and you walk on to all the boatsand until you get to the boat
that's big enough that you'recomfortable with.

If it's just Ken and I 45 probably would have
been fine, but the good words ofwisdom that I'm going to offer
here and I got it from somewhereelse don't get anything bigger
than you need.
You need it, it needs to becomfortable, but don't get it
any bigger, because everythingis more, everything costs more,
everything Sales.

Talk us into a 54-foot or even a 65-foot
Irwin.
I'm like, uh, no.
Number one that's too big of aboat.
Number two where are we goingto park it?
Number three I need more thanmyself and my husband to sail
the boat.
That's the key you need crew.

If you have to bring extra friends to move your
boat, you'll never move theboat.

Right.

So if it's a husband and wife, or whatever,
or one person, the boat has tobe capable of being by that one
person, those two people.
Efficiency, yeah, no, and thisis the part that so many people
miss.
Yes, you can buy a brand newboat, that's, you know, two and
a half million dollars.
But you know what?
If the boat doesn't work foryou, you'll never take it out.

So let's do your research.
Number one look at differentboats.
Actually go to the boat shows.
Walk on boat.
Actually go to the boat shows.
Walk on to these boats.

Walk under the hunters walk onto the benitos,
walk under the generals, walk onmorgan's and island packets.

Walk on now.
If you want a power boat, walkonto the power boats.
See what's going to work foryou for a power boat.
Walk onto the boat.
Look at what do you do everyday.
What do I need?
What are my requirements?
So one of the requirements thatwe had on the sailboat was I
want a center cockpit, because Idon't want to crawl into my bed

(51:48):
at night and sit up and hit myhead.

Okay, that's one of the things when you're on
your aft cockpit boat.

Sometimes you're crawling into your
bedroom, into your bed.
You sit up.

You're crawling into your bedroom, into your bed
, you sit up, you're gonna hityour head so the main stateroom
is in the back on your right wehave an aft cabin oh wow, I have
to come see your boat next timeon there all the cabins, though
if you sit up in the boat onyour bed, you're not going to
hit your head and that's it.

That's a termination that everybody has
to make and, yeah, this is thepart that also, do you want to
walk around a mask in the middleof your living room?

Well, they can give you an idea some of the
criteria I had when I looked atthe boat was I Wanted a boat
that if I had two friends on theboat, somebody didn't have to
sit down, somebody walked bythem.
Number two I wanted to mask sothat if something happened I
still had one mask that was up.
I look at redundancy.
I want two options, you know,going forward and, like she said
, the third one was working firedepartment for 30 some years.

(52:49):
If noise hit, I sit both upright.
I'm like a prime example ofmorgan, a morgan 49.
If you, if you're in the backcabin on morgan 49, you sit up,
your head is going to hit theceiling.
And that's where getting on thedifferent boats and seeing some
of the differences make a hugedifference.

On your livability .
Yeah, you should lay down inthe bunk and try it out, right,
yep.

Right.
Also the hunters.
For all the women out there whoare curious about boating, a
hunter is made to appeal to afemale.

Or a Beneteau or a .

Beneteau or a Beneteau are made to appeal to.

Or an island packet.

They're made to appeal to a woman who wants a
nice boat, who has this andthat, this and that.
However, knowing people whohave owned a hunter, the
benito's aren't about the hunter.
So I've known people who hadthe hunter waited at three to
four foot seas and walked thebow flex I did what the bow

(53:53):
would actually flex a little biton something yeah this is a.

This is the difference between the hunters
are beautiful oh, I really likethis boat.

Look at all the cadmus space, look at this,
look at that.
I'm like you know, it's for me,it's not for him, it's for
short term in the morning fieldin the typical coast to coastal
cruiser, it's not for going to.

The people take I call those production boats yes,
they are production boats I donot.

I do not have a production boat the females
who the males are trying to talkinto boating yes, trying to
convince her to get on a boat tolive on a full time.

That's the boats.
You'll convince money.
However, about five years downthe road you'll go yeah, I don't
want to take this boat offshore.
I've seen what it's done andagain, this is every boat's a
little different.
You can buy three irwins.
You buy three hunters, you knowone after another and every one
of them will be different notthat people have never done it.

People go they do it every day in 36 foot
boats, 40 foot boats, differentkind of style boats, different
kind of.
They go to the Bahamas or theCaribbean every single day.
It's not that you can't do it,but you have to figure out what
your level of comfort needs tobe.
What are you willing tocompromise?
What are you willing to nothave?
What are you willing tocompromise?

(55:20):
What are you willing to nothave?
What are you willing, what doyou have to have to be
comfortable to live on the hill,not camp.

So why don't we all talk about now what's your
hurricane plan?
Say it's a three.
Well, say it's a two.
What do you do for two?

here.
Here's my statement I use mostpeople in the key west area or
any of the keys.
Your typical hurricane you seedown here is a one borderline
two.
They don't have time to developto a strong cat four, cat five.
Irma was a very unique storm.
It developed way offshore.
It had long time to develop.
Most of your storms you getdown this way are very

(56:00):
short-lived when they're here.
They develop much more whenthey pass here.
So your typical Cat 1, cat 2,we look at it, we tighten
everything down, we take downextra wind.
We drop the covers on theBeminis, you know we take down
the wind, you know wind coversand all that.
We tie the sails down.
We put extra lines to themooring ball.
Cat one, cat two.
My boat won't leave a mooringball.

(56:21):
I won't be on it.
I'll take a we call it astaycation.
We'll grab a hotel room in townfor three nights.

Now do they take birds?

They take birds.
Yes, they take pads.
They do yes, they do, some ofthem do.
Some of them do yes.
A Cat 1, cat 2 in the Keys isnot unheard of if you're on a
secure anchorage like a mooringfield.

Yeah, a Cat 1 or 2 is usually passing you by and
heading to me.
Yes, that's exactly what it is.

Bye.
A Cat 3 is a borderline stormwhere you have to look at your
options.
Our option was if it's notgoing to be Cat 3 until we're
past here, we'll do what we'vedone.
If we expect a direct hit froma cat 3 grader, I'll make an
option to pull it out of thewater.
This is the caveat thateverybody has to make a decision
of what they want to do stockisland stock island's one of

(57:08):
them.
Or you can go north if you havetime.
You know robbie's another one,um 3d.
There's several of them downhere or you can run up to naples
stuff like that.
The condition you will look atis going is my boat at greater
danger sitting on the hard onjack stands in bad weather or if
I beef it up where it's?
and it can be, it can be, it canbe greater damage sitting on a

(57:30):
hard because one boat taps over,everybody follows with it.
So it's a.
It's a case-by-case, individualperson's desire.
Me cat one, cat one, cat two.
It's going to sit right on theball with extra lines.
It's done that.
We were here during Ian.
We had 92-mile-an-hour gustscoming through the boat.
We broke a safety line andbusted a zipper on a stack pack.

(57:50):
I'm perfectly happy to replacethose.
That's not a big deal.
On a cat four, there's no bets.

There was one that went by you while I was there
and I had 12 lines on my boat.

Yes, is that the one that was?
And you look at that and go.
Is it better to be in a marinaor be anchored out?
And again, it's all aboutwindage.
If I'm sitting in a marina slipand I'm getting hit broadside
with winds, the boat's rockinginto the dock next to me.
I'm getting what they call dockrash because I'm rubbing
against the poles.
Is that better than sitting ona ball or sitting where you're

(58:28):
secure?
And again it's.
It depends on your knowledge,your basis, how long you've been
with the boat.
If I'm a brand new boater witha you know boat I've never been
at, I'll park in and put enoughlines on it to look like a
spider monkey went crazy.
We've done that.
First year we had the boat, wehad a rather storm.
I told people.
I said I think the spidermonkey went nuts and had about
18.
You know, as we've gone throughmore and more of it and we've

(58:51):
done stuff, we've become moreknowledgeable how the boat
handles some bad weather, howthe windage is at.
What do you drop to make thingschange?
Think of standing out in 50mile an hour winds.
Take a four by four sheet ofplywood and hold it against the
wind.
That small bit of area is ahuge amount of force.
Every time you can drop thatmuch windage off the front of
your boat from being pushed on,that drops the amount of drag on

(59:13):
the boat and anchor andeverything else.

But also one reason we go in is not because
we're not comfortable on theboat, in a Cat 1 or Cat 2, it's
because we both work.
If we have to work, if I haveto go to school, if he has to go
to work, the dinghy ride fromhere to the shore could be
dangerous.

(59:36):
We've lost a lot of people outhere in the, in the rain field
and the anchorage, because theyhad no other choice but to go to
their boat in their dinghy.
I mean, we have the biggerdinghy, the bigger motor.
However, in four foot waves, 30to 40 knot winds, it could get
very dangerous for us coming toand from the boat.
So to be safer, we will stay intown, tie everything down and

(01:00:01):
nine times out of 10, we let thecats in the boat because they
have enough food and water for acouple days.
They're not gonna starve.
They might think they're gonnastarve but they're not gonna
starve.

Stan Loveday (01:00:09):
The boat's not gonna do anything different on a
45 mile an hour wind.
It does every day.
Correct, so that part of it.
You out of the boat.
Sure that you look at the risk?
that's where your greatestdanger eating on and off the
boat that makes sense the secondthing in people make mistake up
to go almost sit on boat.
If it's, you know, 80 mile-hourwinds, I can save the boat.
If it breaks loose, that boatis gonna go one direction,

(01:00:32):
that's with the wind, whereverit ends up at.
Even the Coast Guard, fwc willall tell you if the winds cross
about 45 mile an hour, you willnot save your boat.
Wherever it's going, it's goingto end up in the direction the
wind breaks off.
It's going to land wherever.
The only difference is do youget hurt or more getting on and
off the boat when it getsgrounded?
So, that's the hard part thatpeople don't understand.

(01:00:54):
We look at it as going.
We've been experienced.
We've been on the likes thathave Boat for this many years,
having worked fire department.
For all this I look at the risk.
Benefit is I'm going to spend80 bucks for a night at a hotel
or a hundred bucks for the nightfor the hotel.
That's fine.
We spend two nights there.
You know, people call it snowdays up North.
We call it, you know, stay homedays down here, Staycation

(01:01:15):
Right.

Capn Tinsley (01:01:16):
Staycation, right, okay, so here's some lightning
round questions.
What's your go-to weather appor source for getting in the
dinghy WeatherTrack?

Stan Lo (01:01:26):
W-E-A-T-H-E-R-T-R-A-C-K .
It's an Apple app.
It's like $9 for lifetimesubscription.
It gives me forecasting modelsnot only for the GFS but the
Euro.
I can pick the model.
I can go out three to five daysPredict.
Wind is fine, very short time,windy.
I'm not as fond of.

I like passage weather.

Passage weather is great if, depending on the area
, and this is where one to threedays out.
In the Keys you can predict oneto three days.

Beyond three days anywhere in the Keys.
It's a throwing your dart inthe wall.
Uh, is that with any of them?
Any of them, okay?
Um.
What one tool or piece of gearyou wouldn't?

live on at on the mooring without?
Well, that, or that's a goodquestion, I keep a very full
tool set on a quick, quick grabback.
Think of it you know ditch bagscrewdriver something to fix a
problem.
if I had to grab one little bagI use a DeWalt tool bag that
came from one of the drills.
I have a set of pliers,screwdrivers, all the little

(01:02:38):
things in and a couple of hoseclamps I can grab one bag and
fix 99% of the problems I'mgoing to run into.
On a short term, that one toolset will fix most of the
problems I need to do on a 15minute time frame.
Anything bigger than that I'mgoing to have to get different
tools, other parts, but I needsomething.
If I got a broken hose clampI've got a through hole that the

(01:03:00):
hose popped off I got a clampin there or a plug in there,
something you can grab that andopen it up and fix what it is.

So you got a smaller version of your tool bag
Right and you got your othertools Okay, right.
That's a good idea.
I need to do that, okay.
Biggest mistake you see newcruisers make when anchoring in
ORL in the morning field in KeyWest.

Scope S-C-O-P-E.
If you anchor with less than a10 to 1 scope, let me explain
what that is.
If you're in 10 foot of waterand you don't have 100 foot of
chain out at the top of thewater from your anchor, that is
not 10 to 1.
The keys are not a difficultanchorage.
They're a challenging one.
The amount of sand cover overhard pack coral underneath it

(01:03:44):
becomes a difference on how youanchor and how the anchor holds.
The longer the scope, thebetter the anchor digs in right.
It's mistake people down here.
They're used to anchoring up inthe lakes and the channels now
with a five to one scope.
So in 50 foot of water or 10foot of water, that puts 50 for
the chain up yeah, okay.

Well, I've never heard five to one.
That seems like you'll see thatquite often from people that
come down because they're usedto being on lakes or something
they're being on lakes now.

Ah, end of one is a bare minimum.

You come to the keys okay, end of one at the
waterline.
Another tip of the day um, okay, the water line.
Another tip of the day Okay,favorite anchorage in Key West
that isn't totally overrun.

We're not going to try to make it overrun, but
I've got mine If you come downand I tell people, the west side
of Fleming, as you come out ofKey West, you'll see Key West
Harbor proper.
As you go north of Key West,back around that Key West Harbor
proper, as you go north of KeyWest back around that channel,
not to the Mooringfield, but upthat channel line, you have
Frankford Bank.

(01:04:45):
On the left side you have uhFleming, uh West Fleming
Anchorage on the right.
West Fleming Anchorage is avery great holding area.
It's very busy, it's verypacked because people know it's
a very secure anchorage.

It's packed, so it protects you from the east
winds.

It protects you from the east winds, from the
northeast winds, which are thebad blows.
It's only the occasional westwind, northwest wind.
You'll get out of an odd stormthat you're not protected.
Okay, it's going to change alittle bit with the new

(01:05:24):
anchoring laws and the mooringfield.
They're planning to put aroundwisteria anchorage in the next
30, 30, 90 days.
Wait, wait.
They're going to put mooringballs around.
They're going to put mooringballs around the wisteria
anchorage.
That's property funded throughthe state.
It's going to be a countymooring field.
They're putting 100 balls outthere for boats up through 65
foot in length and they're goingto charge for them, yeah, so
probably be in the 250 range,because you'll have to pay
separate so close.
Yeah, and it's, you're literallytalking, you know, three
quarters to no more than a milefrom the downtown marina yeah,

(01:05:49):
I've, I mean I've kayaked outthere too, if, if I wasn't where
I'm at now and I was comingdown here and that morning field
is in place off of wisteria,100 no%.

No brainer, yeah.
So what are all those peoplegoing to do?

A lot of the boats .
Key West is unique.
We have somewhere over 1,100boats that live aboard housing
in Key West.
These are boats within one mileof Key West proper, all the way
around the island.
A percentage of them are goingto go to the mooring field.
However, a percentage of themcan't go because they can't
afford it or the boats are notfunctioning or not fresh.

(01:06:25):
So a lot of them are going toget moved around a little bit.
But the typical cruiser thatcomes to Key West, you grab a
mooring ball either in GarrisonBight or when they put the new
mooring field there with Syriahands down.
You can spend three monthsthere or three years there and
you're going to be secure.

I'm interested in that Very nice spot.
Yeah, I'm definitely interestedin that.
Going back to the free pump outboat they come out once a month
.
They come out once a week, oncea week.

You don't even have to be on your boat.
You register with them.
It's called On the on the hook.
It's current system.
They use um.
They come out, pump your boatout, whether you're there or not
, once a week that's amazing.
The entire monroe county, allthe way from key west and key
larder that that's amazing.

I mean, I heard that too and it's just like wow,
they just really want to keepit clean they want to keep the
waters of the Keys here,pristine.
Right.

One of the complaints you always hear when
you talk about boaters living ontheir boats anchoring out.
Well, they're pumping sewage inthe water.
No, that's not the true fact.
Most of your true boaters downhere want to be you know.
They want to be able to get inthe water.
They want to swim around theirboat without worrying about
what's in the water.
Float days, you know.
Throw a float out the back ofyour boat and sit in the water

(01:07:40):
for three hours but it has tohappen it has to.

I mean people do it right.

I mean and, like I said, it's a there's a big fee,
though there's like a 25 000,fine, you're going to get fined
very severely for it.
You know they considereverything at zero discharge in
the monroe county area becauseof the sanctuary and stuff like
that.
Right so because of that, andthem doing it once a week,
whether they're there or not,there's no reason not to.

There's no reason.
Yeah, even if your boat's notworking, as long as you have
that holding tank.

As long as you have that holding tank, they'll
pump you out.

Okay, do you miss anything about living on land?

Christina Loveday (01:08:19):
Walmart.

Yeah, you don't have a Walmart.

No, we are closer to Cuba than we are to a Walmart
or a Chick-fil-A.
Chick-fil-a.

Target.

No, you don't need all that.
There I mean you've got Amazon,I have Amazon.
Here's the key that most peopledon't understand that there I
mean you've got Amazon, I haveAmazon.

Here's the key that most people understand why
you stage in Key West, why youtake the three, four months
sitting in Key West.
I can pick up my phone, orderan Amazon part, whether it's a
membrane from a water maker or abilge pump, float sending and
it'll be here in three days.
That's right, I've done it.
I've done it.
You've done it, I've done it.
And it doesn't cost you $700 toget freighted to the middle of

(01:09:01):
the Bahamas.

John said they just changed the policy of maybe
it's just the boat tenants thatare there full-time, can't
receive mail at the dock store.

Most of the marinas don't have mail delivery
at the docks.
That's been that way a longtime.
However, the post office andall that will take Amazon
deliveries.
All you have to do is sign apiece of paper saying I want
Amazon UPS.
They'll deliver it to a postoffice.
They've got multiple places inKey West that will take packages
for you for free.

UPS.

Okay, all right, so not the doc store.
The doc store won't acceptAmazon.
Not the doc store.

Not downtown's dock store, it's the post office
or UPS store, ups store.
You can even arrange PacMailwill take a delivery.
It could be a 90-pound anchorchain or 150-pound set of carts.
They'll charge you $15 todeliver.
All you do is go up there andpick it up.
So you have options for maildelivery here.

(01:10:01):
In Key key west, most peopleend up with a small mailbox down
here.
They can move around.
You're here for six months.
You take a mailbox.
For six months.
You sign a piece of papersaying I'll take my amazon
deliveries here and they'll holdthem for you till you get there
.

Okay, it's like eight dollars for six months, so
it's a little bit of a hike togo over to the.
I mean it's a bike ride over tothe post office.

There's a couple of places PacMail's at 4th
Street and Roosevelt.
It's about four blocks from thedowntown Mooringfield area.

Okay.

You can dig out and go by Ocean Grill, which is
further Simonton area.
There's multiple places and I'mhoping one of the things I'm
trying to work with the Marinadowntown is giving them a
handout when you come in firsttime in.
Here's your list of where doyou fill propane at when do you
get mail delivery.
Oh yeah, so it's going to belike a four or five page
pamphlet cruises guide to KeyWest.

(01:10:54):
It's going to be sitting in theoffice.
Pick it up are you gonna?
ride it, I'm gonna ride it.
I've been working with a coupleof people in the marina to tell
people because the big thing,people come in and goes.
I need to refill my propanetank.
Where do I get it?
One place, that's orion's.
They're there from 1, 30, 3, 30monday through fridays yeah, I
was.

I was wondering that one time when I was there I
I never figured it out.
I should have come and askedyou yeah, a, a lot of stuff.

And because, having been here for enough time
and being downtown for the lastfive years, these questions I
get asked every day and this issome stuff we build into.
You know the Cruiser's Guidefor Key West.
That's going to be part of thebook that comes out.
It'll be a pen to me at the end.
Tell you, where do you do thisstuff?
How do you find this stuff?
Where do stuff?
How do you find this stuff?
Where do you got to go?
What's your grocery stores?

(01:11:38):
How do you get stuff?
How do you provision?
A lot of this stuff will bebuilt into the book as kind of
an add-on, but they'll also beavailable at the marina offices
to pick up you know coming in orgo to all these in St.
Pete, yes, go where to say meall these Sam's clubs, you know
the bigger clubs up in St Petewhere you can stock up on

(01:11:59):
supplies.

Okay, so what's next for you guys?

In the next two years.
She's still teaching at school,I'm still working with Marina
and stuff here.
In about two years we probablyplan to take off and go another
two years down through theBahamas all the way down to
probably down to past Georgetown, down into the BVIs and stuff
like that.
We want to spend two or threeyears traveling the Bahamas and

(01:12:26):
the Caribbean.

Okay, and then?
What Don't know?

Everything's an adventure.
That's the nice part with theboat.
I have grandbabies.
She has one grandchild andanother one on the way, so I
think we're going to be spendinga little more time this way
than that way, but life gets inthe way sometimes.

You make arrangements around it, yeah,
and that's another thing aboutkey west is you can get.
You get on a plane and you cango anywhere you can go anywhere
in three hours.

You can be halfway across country in three hours
out of key west right in tampa.

my, my daughter lives in tampa st so
she can get on a plane to StPete and go anywhere.

And people look at me and go well, you're in Key
West, it's busy, I'm going.
I'm going to show you a picturereal quick from the thing.
This is looking out over myshoulder.
This is what I look at everymorning.

Beautiful.

I go.
This is what I see.
We have sunsets over this way.
Everybody looks at me and goes.
How do you deal with that?

I go, if you couldn't go to the Bahamas this
is the new Bahamas for most ofthe kids.
It really is very convenientthere because you got all the
conveniences of the UnitedStates of America, but you're in
the American Caribbean.

That's exactly it.

I have my Raw Bar shirt on, by the way.
Very nice I love raw bar.

I have a few of those.

That's a great place for oysters.
Let's see.
Are you ever going to go backto dock life?

No, I've been offered a chance three times to
move back to a marina, back to adock.
What like, for free orsomething, uh, very reduced, not
free.
Nobody does free in the keysthat'll be.
Anybody tells you it's free toleave in key west.
They don't know what key west isno but even going back to the
reduced rate, I'm sitting on aboat in the middle of the middle

(01:14:15):
of the bay.
Here I don't have to run theair conditioning, weather is
perfect, I've got a breezethrough all day long.
I'm not paying electric, I'mnot paying water fees, I'm not
paying dock fees.
I'm living the life in Key Westthat most people look at and go
.
I'm a 15-minute ride to shoreon my dinghy to go anywhere I
want in the Keys or anywhereelse, and you can't get better

(01:14:36):
than this and you can't getbetter than this.
I have dolphins play by my boat.
I can go about 200 yards overmy shoulder and I will on Monday
because I've got a new one-daymini season for locals.
I can catch lobsters in threefoot of water and have lobster
dinner Monday night.
That costs me nothing.

Did you see the picture of you on the thumbnail?
Yeah, yes, I couldn't find alot of pictures of you, but I
love that one tell people.

We've dove in water two and a half foot deep.
We've gone along the shoreline,some of the structures.
I've caught lobsters in two anda half foot of water.
Reach down, pick them up, throwthem in the dinghy.
And opening day.
Three years ago we limited out12 lobsters, six apiece here in
about 10 minutes.

Well, you probably know the number.
But without a lot of, if you'reliving like you are, how much
can people do it per month?
You probably know the number Ifyou're not being extravagant
and you don't have a house backhome you have insurance.
You got insurance.

Insurance.
Believe it or not, you can getliability insurance for your
boat cheap.

Well, you've got health insurance, but you have
the marina, you've probably gotthe city benefits.

If if you're relatively healthy.
You're a boat that's functional.
You spend the time fixing theboat right.
You can live in the keys foraround a thousand a month.
That's not going out eatingevery night.
That's not living on DuvalStreet drinking bar.
But we do that a lot.
We do that a lot, not paying$150 for repairs an hour.

That's you doing most of your repairs.

If you're simply mechanically somewhat inclined,
you don't have to be a rocketscientist.

And I said what did you say?

I sew things, you sew things.

Yes, you can do sewing and stuff like that.
I'm going to the top.
You do it for other people,earn a little money.

I do it for other people, yeah, so you fix
sails.

That's right.
You can fix Nice, not sailsanymore.

Any more chaps, dingy chaps, you know, family
covers.

Oh, when I come, come down, will you make me some
dinghy chaps?
Absolutely good, I've got aneight foot takakat and oh, you
got one of those.
Oh, it's awesome.
And it's awesome in the summerwhen it's on the boat.
It just bakes and I I try tocover it up with a tarp, it's.

I need some chaps those are eight foot, not
that bad okay I've made,probably for a second diny,
probably my third or fourth setof chaps you've probably done 10
, probably in the last fiveyears well, you probably could
get I'll find them themeasurements for a tachycat.
Um, I'll go ahead and send youthe money there are various

(01:17:16):
measurements to take on diny tofigure out how much fabric you
need what do I, what do I needto do?

I didn't quite hear that when you, when you get
down here, she'll take atemplate of the dinghy okay
basically like a piece ofplastic measures everything.
So when you grab the handholdit's not got a piece of you know
cloth over.

So yeah, that would be so nice and just not
have to worry about it.
The chaps are on there.
It's not baking in the sun.

The one thing I want people to understand is
you'll hear this thing live inthe Keys for free.
Nothing in the Keys is free,but it is not as expensive as
living, as most people will tellyou, as long as you take the
time.
On a boat On a boat, as long asyou take the time and understand
, you still have to maintain theboat.
You still have to spend acouple hours a day or a couple

(01:18:01):
hours a week or a couple ofhours a month.
This part's not working.
Like if your hatch isn'tworking, it doesn't close easy.
When you get a rainstorm, ifyou can't open the screw on it
and drop the hatch, you're goingto get wet.
That affects the needles.
So a lot of it is just yournormal day-to-day.
If you see something broke,broke, you fix it.

You've got to get ahead of it.
You can't let these thingsbuild up.
You can't let it sit there.

In 18 years I've hired somebody twice not to fix
things on the boat.

You've hired people.
I wish I could say that, nowthat I'm using chat GPT for so
much, I'm going to try.
I already printed some thingsbecause they put a new Garmin
autopilot on my boat with aremote.
Just like John, I wanted to belike John and they screwed up

(01:18:48):
some of the stuff on mychartplotter.
It's not reading on there.

And it's a cabling issue.

What A cabling issue.

Yep, that means you got the wrong cable.
Well, it's just not showing up,but my, my depth and my wind
speed disappeared right, becausehow the cablings run between
the chart plotter, your sendingunits, and the autopilot.
They have different cables thatrun things and terminate.
So they've got it's a cablingissue.

Okay, is it still showing up on my little
satellite reader?
I can see the depth there.

So if you go into chat GPT and type in what's
correct cabling for your Garminmodel number and stuff, all the
stuff that you need to put in,Well, john's coming up Monday
and we're going to tackle that.

And he did say, if it's a cabling issue, no
problem, we'll fix it.
And I love it when he talkslike that well, no problem,
we'll fix it.
I gotta get that going.
But once that's all set up, I'mgonna have a great setup
because I you know how he sitsup there and he just steers his
his remote.
Do you have one of those?

we have the autopilot, but ours is older.
We've got the garmin chartplotter um our boat's 43 years
old a lot of stuff still is.
Some of it's still 35 years oldwow it works, and that's some
of the stuff I tell people isyou don't have to have the
newest, greatest of everythingto make it work, the less
complicated, you make it be ableto fix it.

(01:20:15):
It makes it easier.

Oh, there's another good kitty.
Is that a calico?
What is that?
Yeah?

it's calico.
Aww, so we have one calledBowie and one called Chum.

No, no, you can't call it.

Chum.
We got an anchor and we losthim.

He got rescued and they didn't decide to want to
bring him back, so he's living ashore life somewhere, oh my.

God, oh, you had another one that went to shore.

He went to shore and somebody grabbed him, so it
happens oh my God A lot ofpeople.
When you look at it, you haveto plan not for today, not for
next week.
Look longer term.
What I want to do if I want tobe on the boat for four or five
years, don't buy things.
Fix it today.
Look for things that are goingto last you several years.

Don't derogate it.

Don't derogate it, I call it.

I want yacht quality because I'm you know
it's expensive, right.
I want to buy the best, withinreason, you know, because I want
it to be quality and it's nomatter what you're still going
to be changing out stuff.

It's just yep, we've been, we, we, our one
model we had was going into it,fix it one time, fix it right.
And I've fixed a few itemsthree times because of the age
we've been on the boat 18 years.
Things wear out.
So some of the stuff that wouldlast a normal boater their
lifetime living on the boat fulltime, you use a boat a hundred
times.

Like the water pump and all that, the water
pump.

One of our issues was the.
It wasn't the bilge pump, itwas the.
What did we have failed at?
Oh, the refrigeration.
The original refrigerationfailed.
We replaced it with a set.
It lasted 13 years.
Wow, it gave up the ghost.
To get parts was going to be atwo-and-a-half-month wait, so we

(01:22:08):
changed to a different systemwhich works just as well A
little more power drill, butagain, the first one lasted 13
years.
I keep complaining about that.

That's awesome.
13 years.
Yeah, we built the box.

We created the whole thing, we did all the
stuff and it lasted 13 years.

We put a new system in.

Fergie Boat has a great system.

Let's see your face.
You're going to be in a clip.
I've got to see your face.
There we go.

I'm a teacher on recovery right now.

She's on spring break or summer break, so she's
enjoying not having to work.

Well, Stan, I'm going to end with this.
We've been on here now for anhour and 23 minutes and thank
you so much.
I remember when I was downthere and those wise guys down
there were trying to park theboat, which you're not allowed
to do in Key West by by, unlessyou have a slip.

Right.

Right, and they were drunk and they were, you
know, and they were saying notnice things to both you and me.
You were helping me tie up myboat and then Prince came out
and he was just so, he was justlike walking his little walk,
and had to chase him off.
So that is his little walk andhad to chase him off.
So that is that is somethingthat is a rule there.

Tell us what that is so people don't make that
mistake.
When when you come to key west,there's we have dinghy space,
you know, if you come in withyour dinghy, as long as it's
under 13 foot you you can parkthe dinghy dock.
It's 15 a day.
They don't mind it.
If you bring your boat downthere and you come in like you
want to get fuel and you come inours, they are going to charge
you a nightly rate to park atthe docks and people go.
Why can't I park for free?

(01:23:44):
It's a very busy marina.
We handle on average about 500to 600 dinghies a month coming
in the shore from boats anchoredout.

Well, I'm talking about remember it was a
powerboat.
It was a powerboat, I boatsanchored.

Well, I'm talking about?

remember it was a power boat, I think they wanted
to drop somebody off, but you'renot even allowed to do that.

You got to make a reservation, make a request
before you do anything.
Okay, and it's because the verybusy area.

Yeah, everybody'd be doing it.

It would just be a nightmare doing it, and you
have to understand.
We're a high tourist area.
So we have probably 80 or 90commercial boats that come in
and out of the basin everysingle evening.
So it's very entertaining.
It's very entertaining.
People can say we'll go to theboat ramp and watch them launch
boats.
No, no, come to any fuel dockand ask me.
Look at them.
Try and tie up their boat whenthey park.

(01:24:28):
I tell people the first rule iscall the marina, ask where I
can park and how much it costs.
Almost every place in the keyswill let you park somewhere, but
it's gonna cost you.
It's not expensive, it's notexorbitant.
They just want to know you'recoming in.

What do you mean?
Like if they want to come infor 30 minutes or 30 minutes.

So they want to go catch dinner or they want to
catch, you know, lunch someplace.

So you do have a system for that this is my place
.

Most of the marinas do that, but okay the
first rule is pick up your phone, call them okay cell phones are
everywhere, this place at thispoint in time.
You know you can google andknow any marina you want from
here to alaska and they'll tellyou but just don't come in drunk
and calling names out andcussing.

It doesn't work that way.
You were and that's what Imeant.
You were so calm and you justremained calm, and Prince did
too.
He just kind of walked outthere.
He was calm, prince was yeah.

They were both calm.

Yeah, these people were unruly and they were being
very.
They were handling it good,they remained calm.

We actually left our boat and took our
dinghy down to key westwoodmarina because someone parked
their where they should be.

The police locked them up and until I could get
down there.

Well, they did it was at night yeah, it was
at night, 10, 30 at night.
We left that boat, went throughFleming Key down to Kate West
Byte.
They parked where a charterboat came in and the charter
boat couldn't park where they'resupposed to draw about
passengers so we took thepassengers off.
It was a little more dangerousto step up where they were

(01:26:17):
supposed to be on the fuel dogsdare to go down there and make
them walk to an atm and pay forparking where they were because
penny wouldn't do it think of.

Think of pulling up where a cruise ship parks and
you park your boat and wherethe cruise ship's supposed to be
.
That's what you see every day.
Both times it can be solved byjust picking up the phone, going
where do I park?
They'll tell you and they'lldirect you a little common
courtesy now do people actuallydo it?

oh, yeah, yeah they do it with it.

Yes so the, so the , the night security will call.

Well, like, if somebody comes up there, they'll
call you yeah, sometimes,sometimes, sometimes they call
PD, but usually they'll call meor one of the other Marina
people.

And what do you do ?
You go over there.

Sometimes I can talk them through on the phone
going here's what you got to doOn the worst case scenarios I
have to go in.
It's a hit and miss.

Yeah, don't make me come out there, that's what
you should you will not like me.
At 10 o'clock at night, I willnot like you.
All right, well, you guys, youguys are great.
I'm going to be.
The plan is I'll be down thereand then John and I are going to
buddy boat over to the Bahamas.
I've never I've have taken myformer boat, my other 27 foot

(01:27:35):
boat, over there, but I've nevermade it to Georgetown.
So I would like to do that.

It's a pro dock.

November, December .

It's amazing, it's amazing.
Now look at the current ratesthey're charging for the Bahamas
.
Do a little bit of research.
In the last 30 days they'vejumped the rates up, not only
for cruising permits butanchoring permits, fishing
permits.

Yeah, I've noticed that the cruising permits are a
lot higher.

that could change in the next 90 days when they
start getting the backlash fromit.
Um, but just make sure.

Oh really you think it'll come back down it
should come back down.

It has to last year with 300 for three months.

They want now in the 1800 range for three months
now I saw a guy online who saidI think it was like $700
something for a month.

Well, again, the boat has a fee the anchory if
you're on an anchor you have topay a fee, and they want so much
for a fishing fee.

Right.

The Bahamian government does this every few
years.
You'll see them change it andall of a sudden, the small
islands, the family islands,will go.
You'll see them change it andall of a sudden, the small
islands, the family islands,will go.
We're not gonna make any moneybecause nobody will come here
and they'll pull it back.
They did that with the morningballs last year.
They were gonna put all thesemorning balls in.
You couldn't anchor anymore.
That got squashed within about90 days.
So you'll see some changes onthis.
But just you know, I telleverybody, take a little

(01:28:54):
research ahead of time.
Look at what you know you lookat, follow the news groups,
follow the websites, follow yourgroup, because you're posting a
lot of the information on this.

It's a very good source so right your female
followers want to know aboutcooking coffee and um visiting
yes, and I.

I did a um an episode on provisioning, because
I have some people that goregularly, and we did a video on
provisioning for the Bahamas,because you can't get a lot of
stuff in the Bahamas that's trueIncluding parts and the food
that you want.
If you want to eat it, youbetter take it.

Yep, so the one thing that I thought the
most of were fresh vegetables.
Onions, peppers.
I very rarely found Brusselssprouts, sometimes I found
asparagus, but peppers andonions are my main, like fresh
fruit Apples, bananas, orangesthat's what I bought the most of

(01:29:54):
.

What peppers and onions, like they didn't have
onions they did have onions.

They had peppers and onions.
It's't have onions.

They did have onions, they had peppers and
onions, it's not something youtake and bring with you, because
storage time doesn't last rightright it's a little bit longer
than I thought they were gonnalast, like fresh potatoes or
whatever we should do anotherpodcast.

I would, that would be.
You have to show your face,though that would be.

You have to show your face, though we should
do another podcast where youtalk about that.

I'm, I'm just not scary.
You look great.
Your half of your face iscovered up, though, yeah, move
it down so we can see both ofyou.
Let me get a good shot of youguys.
But there we go, both of you.
Let me get a good shot of youguys, but there we go.
Yeah, hello, can we, can we doanother podcast where you talk
about provisioning?

because you got a lot, of, a lot of good
information, because we thoughtwe knew what we were doing when
we provisioned the first time wewere wrong a lot of things how
long were you there?
Um.

First time was about five and a half months.

Five and a half months.
So what we learned was um, webought the Mylar bags with the
O2 oxygen.
Little things to put into them.
White rice was fine.
Pasta was fine, bisquickpancake mix no, really yeah,

(01:31:20):
because it takes the yeast outof it.

Your pancakes come out about that thick.

So when you put pancake mix into a Mylar bag
, put O2 Absorb into it.
It takes the yeast out.
I'm'm like I know how to makepancakes with water.
What am I doing wrong?

you're really, you're really cooking on that
boat.
You're making pancakes, you'restarving.

so you're not starving sausage and all kinds
of stuff, but even the bisquick,the yeast, doesn't last in the
marlar box because the O2packets you put into it takes
the yeast out of it.
Okay, tip of the day.

So what do you do?

So you take the flour, you pack the baking
soda, baking powder, you havehave your stuff and you have
yeast packets, so you make themfrom scratch you make it from
scratch or you use it veryquickly.

A what you or you use them very quickly okay, you
don't store it very long, you'veeaten a lot of carbs at the
beginning of the trip and thenalso brown rice, does not last
in the brown rice is like samething as nuts your wallets and
that because of a high oilcontent, they go rancid yeah, we

(01:32:50):
love brown rice, we love thewild rice.

What if?

you get those little, those little cups that
are packaged, you know theminute rice, which is very good,
by the way.

You have to take them out of package.
You know, we don't have amicrowave, we haven't had a boat
in almost seven years right, soI'm no microwave no microwave
no microwave.
That's why I practiced for threemonths prior, like how am I
gonna heat stuff up?
How am I gonna make my like?
How am I going to heat stuff up?
How am I going to make mycoffee?
How am I going to make my crockpot, rice or whatever?

(01:33:26):
I found a crock pot you can useon the stove, so you have a
crock pot or a pressure cooker.

It's fresh and, yeah, the newest thing you hear
people talking about the, theair fryers oh, I have an air
fryer.
It's really small and it'll runoff the inverter I can cook
shrimp quesadillas man, you're alucky man, stan I cook all the
time.

In fact, he has sausage and rice down there
and he's such a slender man.

I mean you would think that you know.
No, he's not, he's a slenderguy, he's not, he's fine.
No, it's a compliment, he'sfine.

He's not fat.
What you find is, most peoplethat are living on the boat
full-time are the healthiestgroup.
You'll find out there because Ilike fresh air all the time.
We're always moving around.

You're not sedentary at all, right unless
you're watching something likechicago fire in venice oh is he.

I'll watch a lot of he, does you?

know the other advantage of uh having a
starlink you can get everythingyou need wherever it's a game
changer.

I'm a realtor and so I have to be in touch, and
when I came back in 2023, leftthe keys.
I overnighted in the Evergladeswith no cell service and I had
my Starlink.
I had the cameras going.
My husband could check in on me.
What a game changer.
I can go different places now.

And the new mini system is about a third the
power usage of the old system.

Yeah, I've heard of that.

We just installed it here on the boat in the last
week.
We've been running the version2 for two years.

I've got three.

I've got three.
Three is good.
The new mini is running off the12 volts, so you're really it's
a very low draw system.

Oh, there we go.

There's the third one, and that's Chum.
That's Marco, that's Marco.
Oh, that's Marco.

That is Chum's brother.
One's a fat cat, the otherone's a skinny one.

Okay, hey baby, hey baby, the kitties are
looking at me.
Well, thank you very much forhaving us.
Thank you very much, you guys.

More female questions about cooking and
re-prisoning.

You should watch some of my past episodes.
I've had some great women on.

I look at these women and I'm like that's
cool.

Last week I had a woman on.
She's like 63 now but shedidn't start sailing until she
was 60.
60.
And she's a retired teacher,and she sailed from Martha's
Vineyard to the Keys I mean toGeorgetown and back by herself.
That's amazing.

Listen, I drive.

She's the one who drives, I pull, I'm the grunt I
pull up the anchor.
I raise the sail.

You're the first mate.

I drive, he's the first mate.

He's the first mate.

Pulls the sail, he drops the anchor.
I'm the one back there driving.

Yeah, we're good at that.
I mean I've gotten pretty.
I have to say I've gottenpretty skilled at coming in and
out of marinas in all situationsand just by doing it.

That's what I've never done.
I've never once pulled into amarina or backed out of a marina
.

Well, you have to understand.
We've only been into a marinaone time in the last eight years
.

Every time we left St Pete I was the one who
pulled the lines.
He drove out of the marina andinto the marina, even in Bimini
I'm like ah yeah.
There's a lot of current therein Bimini, but the winds were so
high and were so small.

Yeah, really gets the adrenaline going.
It's fun.

I never, never once pulled into Marina or
out of Marina.

But you pulled up to a lot of morning balls.

I pulled up to a lot of morning balls and I
made it a lot.

You should do it.
It's just by doing it.
That's the only way you can getcomfortable.

We have to go to Marina.
We never go to the Marina.

You don't need it, then we will go to the marina,
it's just.

You don't need it, then that's it.
We will go to the marina inAugust.

Probably Maybe get some work done why?

don't you get a discount in September?

September, it's a cheaper rate.

At Key West, it's still.

Key West.
We don't get any discountworking there, but it's a
cheaper rate.

Yeah, I think that's when those people it's
like half or something rightAbout a third less About a third
, not even half.
Nice and John John's got thatgreat.

He's got the living board spot.
He's been there for a while, sohe is I told him he's
grandfathered in.

He says he's great grandfathered in, great
grandfathered in.
I mean he's got the best rate.
I mean he can't leave, he can'tever leave, or it's gone.
Yeah, All right guys.
Thank you so much.
What a pleasure.
I will see you down there.
What's that?

When will?

you be here.
I'm hoping I'll be there on myboat in October, but I might fly
down there before I'm all overthe place.
Maybe, that's due November 10th.
You have a.

what A grandbaby due, a granddaughter.

Oh, november 10th.
Congratulations Number two.
Wow, congratulations.
I know that's exciting.
You're going to be going upthere.
Yes, you'll be there, a, you'regoing to be going up there.

Yes, you'll be up there a lot in November,
December.

So St Pete.

Yeah.

Well, I'll be passing through there.
Right there you go, I'll bepassing through.

In St Pete or Tampa.
I'll be up there August,september, october, november.
I'll drive him up toThanksgiving and Christmas.

Well, when I'm there and you're there, you're
both there.
I would love to do a tour ofyour book.
Absolutely, I would love tovideo it.
No problem, we'll do that.
All right, guys.
Thank you so much, thank you,and I always end it with salty
banding, salty Abandoned.

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