Tag Archives: boats

How RVing is Prepping Me for Cruising

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The two activities are remarkably similar.

I’m sure I bored Capt Paul on Nano with my never-ending comparisons between cruising and camping (and flying, for that matter). In the beginning, I was constantly asking him questions about and observing things like navigation and using marinas. And then, when my mind started equating these new activities to things that were familiar to me, I drew comparisons. Over and over. Ad nauseam.

They really are a lot alike. And because of that, a lot of the experience I’ve gained as a long haul RVer — someone who stays away from home for more than a month at a time — can easily be applied to future activities cruising on a boat. I thought I’d take a moment to run through a few; if you’re an RVer or a cruiser, you might learn a bit about the activity you’re not familiar with.

Things That Are Very Similar

Planning
Planning an RV road trip is a lot like planning a cruise in that you have to gather all of the information you can about the route, weather, desired destinations, and alternative destinations. You need to plan for where you can get fuel, where you can park overnight, where you can replenish supplies such as water and groceries, and where you can dump or pump out the blackwater tank. During the information gathering process, you learn as much as you can about roads/waterways and facilities along the way. This includes reading reviews left by other travelers to help you make informed decisions. Even if you start with a thorough plan for the trip, you have to be prepared to make changes to that plan to take advantage of new opportunities or handle unexpected problems. As someone who has traveled — usually alone — with an RV for about fifteen years, I feel as if I’ve been trained and tested on my abilities to make plans, change plans, and take care of problems as they come up. This skill will come in handy on a boat.

Navigation
In both activities, you need to find your way from point A to point B. With a camper, you do this on roads; in a boat, you do this on established waterways. In both activities, there are restrictions. For example, when I travel with my camper, I can’t take any road that doesn’t offer at least 12 1/2 (or 13, to be safe) feet of head clearance. I also need to avoid roads that are very rough or have soft sand so I don’t get stuck. Likewise, in a boat, you need to worry about head clearance — especially in the case of navigating canals and small waterways — but also about water depth.

Weather
Yes, I can drive my truck camper in high winds or rain or even snow. But do I want to? Is it safe? Ditto for traveling on the water. Wind and waves make potentially dangerous — or at least uncomfortable conditions. Either way, it’s important to check the forecast when planning the day’s travel.


These days, I’m spending two of every seven to ten days at a campground. I expect to spend about the same at marinas once I’ve become accustomed to cruising and anchoring out.

Campgrounds / Marinas
I cannot stop drawing comparisons between campgrounds and marinas. They can offer a variety of services — the same services! Power, water, sewer dump/pump out. Restrooms, showers, laundry facilities, wifi, supply shop, pool. Logo merchandise, souvenirs. Social and recreational opportunities. They both cost money and many directly or indirectly charge you based on the size of your camper/boat.

Free Campgrounds / Docks
These are a little harder to find, but they do exist: free facilities that offer some of the features you might find at a pay campground/marina. I’m staying in one right now: a nice little campground on a lake with developed campsites that have picnic tables, fire pits, and grills. There are even a handful of toilets. When I cruised on Nano, there were lots of free docks on the Erie Canal; several had access to power, water, and restrooms with showers.


Here’s my camper, parked at a free campground in Nevada that offers picnic tables, grills, fire pits, and access to a lake filled with migratory birds — and not much else.

Boondocking / Anchoring Out
In the RVing world, boondocking refers to parking someplace where you have no facilities — you’re limited to what you have with you. My camper is set up perfectly for boondocking; it holds fresh and waste water, has a water pump, water heater, toilet, shower, stove, oven, refrigerator, sink, etc. Solar panels keep the batteries charged, and I bring along a 2 kw generator just in case there isn’t enough sun to get the batteries charged. I find a suitable place — usually public land out in the desert or up a mountain road or sometimes, if I’m in transit and just want overnight parking for an early start in the morning, in a Walmart or Cracker Barrel parking lot — and park there for free. I make myself comfortable with what I have with me. The equivalent in the boating world is anchoring out for the night. You have to find a suitable place, drop anchor, and do what’s necessary to make sure you don’t drift. Then you make yourself comfortable with whatever you have on board. The trick in both activities is to find someplace safe and secure and, hopefully, quiet.

Packing Light
Whether you’re in a camper or on a boat, space is limited. You quickly learn to bring only what you really think you’ll need. When you have too much stuff with you, it’s constantly in your way. :Even shopping for food becomes a tricky task; you can’t buy more than will fit in your refrigerator or cabinets and you often have to shed bulky packaging before loading groceries on board.

Staying Organized
One of my biggest problems is that I live a cluttered lifestyle at home. When you have a lot of space and a lot of stuff and can’t seem to get rid of stuff or put it away you get clutter. I know why this happens and I know how to fix it. Although I don’t fix it at home, I’ve learned how to fix it in my camper. The reason: when there’s a tiny amount of space and its cluttered up with things you don’t need or aren’t currently using, it makes life miserable. So I’m constantly putting things where they belong or getting rid of them completely. As a result, my living space is relatively neat and clean unless I’m in the middle of a project — like planning a day’s activity, writing a blog post, or studying for my Captain’s license. This skill will be invaluable on a relatively small boat, especially since just stowing things outdoors on the ground will not be an option.

Conserving Power
Because my camper has just two batteries that, when I’m not in transit or plugged in somewhere are charged by a solar panel, I’ve learned to shut things off when I’m not using them and plan my activities around when the sun will replenish power. For example, washing dishes requires the use of a power sucking water pump; that’s why I always wash my dishes in morning or during the day when the sun is on those panels and can replenish the power I used. While I’ll have a generator available when necessary, who wants to listen to it if they don’t have to?

Conserving Water
There isn’t much water out in the desert when I’m boondocking and my camper only carries 30 gallons of fresh water in its tank. I have become very good at conserving water — so good that I can make that 30 gallons last nearly a week. Yesterday, for example, when I decided that I really need to clean my camper’s windows, which were covered with a white film from driving though a snowy area, I filled a basin with water from the lake behind my campsite rather than use a gallon or more from the onboard tank. (It wasn’t as if I were going to drink it or wash my dishes with it.) Boats have similar limitations, especially if you’re boating in salt water. While I’m not opposed to putting filtered lake water into my holding tank for washing and showering, I would never put salt water in it. Water desalination systems are expensive and power-hungry; it would be nice to do without one.

Toilet / Shower Use
Both my camper and Nano have a wet bath — that means that the shower and the toilet share the same space. There’s a limit to the amount of hot water and showering makes a mess. (It does, however, offer an opportunity to clean the bathroom thoroughly since you need to towel it out after a shower.) I shower in my camper when I have to, but certainly not daily. I never showered in Nano. And because there’s a limit to what you can put in the holding tanks, it’s best to do your business elsewhere — like at a campground/marina or restaurant along the way — when you can. I have had some excellent showers at truck stops (really!) and a few pretty good ones at marinas while cruising on Nano. The less you put in the blackwater holding tank, the less often you need to tackle the dirty job of emptying it.

Things That are Different

Toilet / Head
This was a surprise to me. In the RV world, toilets are usually gravity flush and, with a limited size tank that has to be dumped in a proper facility, the less you put into them, the better off you are. I learned to flush with very little water. This became a problem on Nano since the head worked with some sort of pumping system and you had to flush until the water you could see beyond the bowl was clear. I estimate that it takes at least 4 times as much water to flush a boat’s head than an RV’s toilet. That means you are using more fresh water and putting more in the tank so you’ll have to dump/pump out more frequently. (Another reason to use public restrooms.)

Parking Hazards
When I park my camper in a secure spot — a flat piece of desert, a marked campsite, a parking lot — I don’t expect it to move. Hell, I usually don’t even set the parking brake. But things are different in a boat. Yes, if you tie off properly in a marina slip or at a dock, your boat should stay where you put it. But anchoring out overnight introduces all kinds of new challenges that are related to the movement of water (current and/or tide) and wind. I will definitely follow all anchoring recommendations when I anchor out and make use of anchor warnings that are widely available in navigation software for boaters.

The Bottom Line

At the end of all this, I’ve come to realize that I am well prepared to move my travels from hitting the road with an RV to hitting the waterways with a live-aboard boat. While I still lack a lot of raw boating experience in unusual circumstances — mostly challenging weather and water conditions — I have the logistical aspects worked out better than a lot of folks might. The fun will come in putting a long trip together and seeing it through from beginning to end — and learning from that experience.

I live to learn and I can’t express how much I’m looking forward to the cruising lessons ahead of me.

Stats Don’t Lie

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I slept like crap on that boat trip.

Regular readers might recall that I spent 5 weeks as one of two crew members on a 27 foot Ranger Tug in August and early September of this year. I left 3 weeks earlier than I’d planned because of a personality conflict with the other crew member, who was also a high-volume snorer.


I’m sleeping a lot better now that I’m off that boat. The gap in readings is a result of my watch not picking up sleep data for a few weeks.

Well, I’ve been looking at the sleep stats on my phone — my Apple Watch tracks my sleep and reports results in the Health app — and the results are pretty conclusive: I’m getting, on average, about 90 minutes more sleep per night now that I’m back at home than what I was getting while on the boat (and during my high-stress cherry drying season before that).

My poor sleep on the boat was a result of several factors, listed here in no particular order:

  • The size of the “bed.” I put bed in quotes because even a twin mattress makes a larger bed than I was sleeping on. I’d estimate the width at under 3 feet and the length maybe 6 feet. I’m not a small (or short) person so this was a very small space for me.
  • The shape of the “bed.” It was a v-berth so there was a slight curve to the bed. I don’t think this was a major factor, but it was part of the bed situation.
  • The temperature in the sleeping area. It was hot and humid for the first 3 weeks of the trip. I can take heat, but the humidity was killing me. That got worse at night in a space with very little ventilation. We each had our own little fans and they helped a lot, but most nights I woke multiple times sweating with no bedcovers over me. It got better when we left the Canal and entered the Great Lakes.
  • My roommate’s constant pushing of her sleeping bag over onto my side of the sleeping area. Shit. As if my bed wasn’t small enough, I had to wrestle with her extra bedding?
  • My roommate’s snoring. I think this was the primary reason I slept like shit every night and needed a nap almost every day. The other crew member snored like a buzzsaw. Seriously, she is a prime candidate for a CPAP machine. I can only imagine the brain cells she’s losing to oxygen deprivation every night while she’s sleeping. Ear plugs muffled the sound but did not remove it. It woke me numerous times every night and was the reason I was often out of bed before 5 AM.

True story: the first night I was on board and we all went to bed, my roommate immediately began her high decibel snoring. I had no earplugs; I naively didn’t expect to need them. I got out of bed and looked around the very small boat for somewhere else to sleep. There was no place else. I was stuck in that forward cabin with the noisemaker. I sat in one of the main cabin’s seats for about an hour trying to figure out how I’d live with this for the expected 8 weeks of my trip. I was nearly in tears when I finally crawled into bed.

I obtained earplugs — the best the pharmacy had to offer — the next day.

I eventually recorded the sound of her snoring on my phone. If I can find it, I’ll share it here.

The thing that didn’t bother me? The movement of the boat. That was very pleasant. Stress: I had none, except near the end when I wanted to leave the boat but worried that I was needed on board.

Naps during the day saved my ass (and sanity), but that nap time is included in the time that my watch calculated for total sleep. So I was living on an average of less than 6 hours of sleep per day for 5 weeks.

Anyway, my upcoming trip should not have this problem. I’ll have that front v-berth to myself and might even be able to sleep with my head in the bow. I’m looking forward to it!

Differences in Cruising Styles

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There’s more than one way to get around on a boat — and more than one organization to support your travels.

I’m not sure if this blog post should go here or in my Great Loop blog, so I’ll put it here. I think I prefer to keep that blog about specific Great Loop and other boating trips. This blog is a good place for some thoughts about my travels and experiences.

That said, I’d like to discuss the various ways cruising can be done when covering a long distance.

Great Loop Completion Fever

The American Great Loop Cruiser’s Association (AGLCA), which I shared thoughts about here, is a huge supporter of the goal to complete the Great Loop. They have members only and fee-based video webinars — think narrated slide shows you can watch for $25 a pop — and fee-based rendezvous events with seminars to help you learn everything you need to know to complete the Great Loop. They also have forums which, as we all should know by now, is the modern way for organizations to accumulate free content under the guise of sharing knowledge. As I discovered last week, the AGLCA’s forums are heavily moderated and a member’s comment can be deleted or edited at the whim of the moderator, even when no stated rule is broken. (So much for a free exchange of ideas.) When you start planning or doing your Great Loop trip, you can buy a burgee to hang on your boat; when you complete it, you can buy a different colored burgee to hang on your boat. And if you complete it more than once, open you wallet and buy yet another colored burgee to hang on your boat. And yes, you can save a few bucks on all of the burgees and a few other things if you are a member; discounts are a benefit for AGLCA members.

One of the things I learned on my ill-fated journey aboard Nano is that some people do the Great Loop cruise just so they can say they’ve finished the Great Loop, or “crossed their wake.” It’s not all about the journey — all those places they can stop and visit along the way — as much as it’s the destination — crossing their wake to complete the journey.

I learned this early on in a discussion with Dianne, the other crew member. It had to be the first week when she stated, as a matter of fact, “The only reason people do the Great Loop is to be able to say they’ve done the Great Loop.” I told her I doubted that but she did not agree. (Surprise, surprise.) I told her that I saw the Great Loop as a way to explore the eastern waterways without having to backtrack to a starting point. (I suspect she thought I was full of shit.)

Doing a trip like this just to able to tell people I’d completed the Great Loop was silly because where I live, no one knows what the Great Loop is. In fact, when you leave the eastern part of the country and its boating communities, very few people know what the Great Loop is. It’s no fun to brag about something when you have to explain it every time you try. In fact, as if to prove my point, every time we stopped at a marina and there was another boater there that she could talk to, she made a point of telling them we were doing the Great Loop and having to explain to half of them what the Great Loop was.

I was naïve when I started the trip. I thought other people thought the way I did — they were in it for the journey. But I was ignoring facts: primarily, the rough travel plan. Capt Paul had planned the trip with the first half at a very fast pace — 30 or more miles a day — but had assured me that it was a general plan and would change. It didn’t change, however, until Day 10, when I suggested Newark instead of Lyons for an overnight stop. As things turned out, we needed to go as far as Newark that night, but I still wonder whether we would have been stuck at a crappy marina nowhere near the town of Lyons if lock closures hadn’t forced us to keep going.

It wasn’t until we got out into the Great Lakes that I realized the trip was really all about completing the Loop. Capt Paul had already started the Loop from Stuart, FL past New York City to Portland, ME a few years before. So he had the east coast portion done. This trip was all about completing the Loop. When he got to Stuart in November, he would be done.

Because of this, we were prepared to simply motor from one point to the next almost every day, with few shore days. We had no ground transportation — for example, bicycles — and didn’t even have a dinghy set up and ready to use. Few planned stops on the trip had points of interest or even grocery shopping opportunities within walking distance. We passed up many potentially interesting spots along the way. Yes, we did spend multiple days in several cities — Buffalo, Cleveland, and the outskirts of Detroit — and we did visit more boating related museums than I was aware existed. But we did no exploration on the water and very little hiking/biking/touring on land. Other than breakfast, we ate most of our meals in whatever restaurants we could find.

It reminded me of long road trips I’d done in the past, like from New Jersey to Arizona. The goal is to get there so you don’t make many stops along the way. You just motor and stop for fuel, food, and a place to spend the night. But on the boat, there was only one stop per day and that had to cover everything you needed.

I don’t know why I expected otherwise. I did have that plan and I had programmed it into Aqua Map so I knew exactly where we were supposed to stop. I guess when Capt Paul told me that it was just a rough plan and could change, I thought it could really change. I didn’t realize that the changes would only come much later, when we were on the Great Lakes and lake conditions might control when we cruised. In a way, that made it worse. Although it was the part of the journey that we could easily skip stops — the planned stops were sometimes laughably close together, for example just 20 miles between Port Huron and Lexington, MI? — many of those stops had nothing of use or interest to us. Getting stuck somewhere because weather was bad made it necessary to skip stops on subsequent days to “stay on schedule.” The only hard point in the schedule was Chicago, where I was supposed to disembark and another crew member was supposed to board in my place. I’d originally built 8 extra days into my Chicago departure date in case we were delayed; I don’t know if the other crew member had flexible travel plans.

I guess my point is this: I had naïvely and irrationally expected the trip to give me opportunities to explore interesting points of interest along the way and, in most cases, it didn’t. Both Capt Paul and Dianne were doing the trip to say they’d completed the Great Loop. (Dianne still has to find someone to take her from Florida to New York to complete her loop.)

I should add a few things here:

  • The Great Loop, as it’s laid out, is logically completed over the course of a year. You do the southern part in the winter months and the northern part in the summer months. You travel south from Chicago in Autumn and north from Florida in spring.
  • Many people will do the trip at a leisurely pace and park the boat for occasional trips home while enroute.
  • Capt Paul planned to do 4,000 miles of the trip — that’s 2/3 of the total Loop mileage — in four months. That’s 1,000 miles per month in a boat that cruises at 10 to 12 knots.
  • In the book I read about a woman doing the Loop solo, Crossing the Wake, she completed the entire loop in about 6 months. She was definitely one of those folks whose only concern was “doing the Loop.”

My point: although the mostly retired folks who do the Loop take their time about it, not everyone does.

Enjoying the Journey

The other extreme is someone who does the loop at a slow cruising speed with lots of multiple-day stops and dinghy trips to explore smaller adjacent waterways.

I was contacted by such a person recently. We’ll call him “Joe,” because I don’t see any reason to identify him. Joe’s boat is down for maintenance right now on the east coast’s Intracoastal Waterway (ICW) and he’s home, but he’s thinking about his next leg. He told me a little, in an email, about how he cruises:

As far as how I travel, I’ve had 300 or so boat days of which about 100 have been travel days. Before I began I estimated that I would average 10 miles per day and that has pretty well happened, as well as my estimate of 1 travel day in each 3 day period. I have stayed in some spots for 7 days and alternatively have gone 80 miles some other days when there was nothing in between points. I’ve anchored out probably 10 times and would like to do more, especially now that I have solar panels. Some of the Georgia anchorages have been the most tranquil days I have experienced. I like to explore—have done museums, famous BBQ places, historic districts, biking through nature preserves, interpretive kayaking tours, popular Florida beaches by car when removed from the ICW, cities…all depends where we are. And now that the inflatable and outboard are repaired/replaced, I’d like to do some dinghy exploring if the opportunity arises. I like the social aspects of marinas and have traveled alone and with buddy boats. My travel is almost always at trawler speeds even though the boat is capable of more. I have stayed within the ICW when I had a choice, preferring not to have to find an inlet quickly should a situation require it, and also seeing the (more interesting and varied, I think) scenery from up close instead from a few miles offshore.

This is music to my ears (or eyes, technically, since I’m reading it and not hearing it). Here’s a person who is interested in the voyage more than the destination. All the activities Joe mentions are the kinds of things I’ve been dreaming about. I was really hoping to do some anchoring out on our trip and we did none — in fact, we were docked with a power connection every single night. (No roughing it!) I plan on doing a lot of anchoring out in my boat so I’m eager to experience it to see if it’s what I expected.

I’m also interested in the social aspects of marinas, which is one thing we mostly missed. Because most folks do the trip at a more leisurely pace than we did and just about all of them want to be to Chicago by Labor Day weekend because of potential weather issues on Lake Michigan in September, most long distance cruisers, including Loopers, were ahead of us. (We were in Detroit with a full month of cruising ahead of us on Labor Day weekend.) It was only when we reached Harrisville, MI on Lake Huron that we started catching up with them — or a handful of late Loopers caught up with us. Even then, stuck at a marina with them for an extra night due to a small craft advisory on the Lake, we did not socialize other than quick conversations. I was looking forward to more socialization with others, especially since my onboard socializations were so limited. It’s by chatting with other Loopers (without the fear of message editing/deletion by an overzealous moderator) that we learn about other things along the way, whether they’re great, good, disappointing, or to be avoided at all cost.

And finally, his comment about seeing the sights close up really hit home with me. There is nothing more boring than being “out to sea” on one of the Great Lakes for hours on end, miles away from anything that might be interesting onshore. Add rough water tossing you around like a cork in a blender and you’ve got a miserable travel day that really didn’t need to be so bad.

I suspect Joe plans his trips as he does them, making plans a few days ahead of his current location but being willing to change if he needs/wants to. That capability comes with the flexibility inherent in being more interested in the journey than the destination and deadlines. While it’s important to have some sort of plan with some sort of deadline — I don’t think anyone would deny that — I think a flexible plan is preferable to one created months in advance and almost set in stone.

My Preference for Cruising — and Planning

I think that when my time comes to plan my voyage along the Great Loop, I’ll take it more like Joe does. In fact, I have to admit that I’m not all that interested in “doing the Loop” anymore. I want to cruise along the Loop but it really isn’t that important to finish it.

Right now, I’m extremely interested in two parts of the loop:

  • For winter, the Florida Keys and ICW. This is a (mostly) heavily populated area with lots of people and facilities — very different from my usual travel. Maybe I need something different in my life? And I’ve always been interested in the ICW as a sort of slow-speed water highway up the east coast. How cool would it be to explore that and the rivers that feed into it?

  • Triangle Loop Map
    The Triangle Loop. In reality, there are a lot more options in that part of New York State.

    For summer, the New York State canal system. I had a taste of it on my trip but it wasn’t enough. I could easily spend an entire summer cruising the Erie and Canadian canals and the lakes they go through. Boat US had a great article about the mini loops that are available to explore; some version of the Triangle Loop looks good to me.

Why bother with the Loop at all? Well, as I told Dianne, it’s a way to explore a lot of territory without doubling back to return to a starting point. But what’s more impressive to me is the sheer volume of information available to Loopers about navigation, points of interest, and facilities. This makes it very easy to plan trips.

Most of the hard data about the Loop is available on services like Waterway Guide on their website and in their printed publications. (I’m not sold on their app; it needs a lot of improvement before I could recommend it.) The marine navigation app I like is Aqua Map, which offers the option of overlaying Waterway Guide data on the chart. So I can see a charted marina or bridge or lock or hazard and tap an icon to get more information about it right from Waterway Guide. I can’t tell you how useful this was for planning along the way. (It’s how I found Newark NY as a much better overnight alternative to Lyons NY on the one opportunity my input into an overnight destination was actually used.)

Alpena Map Alpena Marina
Here are two images from Aqua Map showing the Aqua Map chart with Waterway Guide icon for a marina (left) and the Waterway Guide info window that appears when you tap the marina icon (right). All the information you need, at your fingertips.

As far as supportive organizations go, there are alternatives to the AGLCA. The Marine Trawlers Owners Association (MTOA) was recommended to me by a AGLCA member who was appalled by my forum messages being tampered with. He told me that MTOA’s forums are not so strictly moderated so you can share opinions and information that a moderator might not like. Capt Paul is a member and hangs their burgee at the front of his boat.

For Ranger Tug owners, there’s TugNuts, a group of Ranger Tug owners. If I do buy a Ranger, I will definitely participate in their forums. As I discuss in the Day 27 post of my Great Loop Blog, their existing forum posts were helpful in troubleshooting a weird electrical issue we had in Detroit.

Those are just two examples. I guess my point is this: you don’t need to join the AGLCA and deal with their heavy-handed forum moderation to learn about the Great Loop and related matters.

Going Forward

While my first Great Loop adventure didn’t go as well as I wanted and ended before it was supposed to, I’m not discouraged. I know now that there are other cruisers who are more interested in the journey than the destination — as I am. Maybe I can even hitch a ride with one of them and learn firsthand about their style of cruising.

September 27, 2021 Update:
I have to add here that I’ve been contacted directly by several AGLCA members who claim that the management of AGLCA has driven friends of theirs from the organization. Clearly, there are problems and clearly AGLCA values the people who pay dues and keep quiet over those who question their operations or decisions. Is that the kind of organization anyone wants to be a member of? I don’t.

I’m also encouraged by the supporting messages and emails I’ve received from AGLCA members who were bothered by the heavy-handed moderation that caused some of my messages to be deleted or edited. (I can’t decide which is worse, honestly.) Thanks, folks! As we all know, it was the AGLCA’s moderator who blew the whole thing up and made it an issue. I now know better than to waste my time and energy participating in a forum where my comments can be discarded at the whim of a moderator.