Liverboard costs- Again!

poter

poter

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Joined
4 Feb 2002
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2,127
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Still going south currently in Corsica for winter
www.fairhead.com
I have worked my ass off these last few weeks in getting Shady up to a decent sailing spec. & will have the new rigging put on Tuesday, then the Med is my Oyster BUT I am on a fixed pension budget & will not be able to pay some of the exorbitant marina fee charges East of here – sailing to Greece & Turkey.

Question - are others sailing around the Med. On low incomes? Also how do I get from south of France, coastal hopping, & still get where I want to go by mostly using the hook?
 
poter said:
I have worked my ass off these last few weeks in getting Shady up to a decent sailing spec. & will have the new rigging put on Tuesday, then the Med is my Oyster BUT I am on a fixed pension budget & will not be able to pay some of the exorbitant marina fee charges East of here – sailing to Greece & Turkey.

Question - are others sailing around the Med. On low incomes? Also how do I get from south of France, coastal hopping, & still get where I want to go by mostly using the hook?
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Hello Peter,

My wife and I live off my state pension and live comfortably. Most of the time we are at anchor. However we do make sure that we are in a safe CHEAP marina for the winter months and that that marina will have a few other live aboards to have a social life. Naturally you have to draw down on the savings now and then. For the odd breakages etc.

Good luck

Peter
 
Costs of living aboardship

...well Pierre as you may or may not know I is a rambler...I ramble on as the led Zep song goes.....we made sure we had loads a cash coming in afore we left Blighty.......my boyfriend is now skintish but not moi..........we live v cheap,anchor all the time in summer,cheapskate marinas in winter,Crete again this year,lully Partheni previous 2 before the fall out......we dont seem to eat much as expending little energy unless sumat goes wrong...er sea water in the bilges and gearbox out of boat and off to Athena then back on boat....etc etc,we as do most draaaaank a lot though BUT at the mo we have 5 litres of vin rouge for 6.50E cheap AND cheerful...depends I reckon on what you can do without....moi I am cheap to keep...must go for a ramble at 6 tomorrow morning to keep me legs moving......it costs us more to live aboard than it cost to live in uk...unlike most...as house was paid for used little gas and leccy had no tele so no licence to pay.......ate little drrraaaank lots and had an office car and free bus fares in Londinium!ooohhh errr I exhaust mesen.........
 
Peter,
Don't be so much in a rush to get to the Med.
France is expensive compared to Spain where you can anchor. We have been in a marina which is free for the last three weeks with some wonderful cruisers for company. We will move on soon to another free marina.
Just make sure you can support yourselves with power, anchor in the summer and go through the Med when marinas are cheaper. Don't be afraid to haggle the prices.
There is a good on-line e book which is cheap called "gently saiilng to the med" which does it all apart from the France/ Spain crossing in day sails.
Look at our website for an idea of the places we have been,all day sails and any help I an give just pm or e mail me.
 
We crossed what we thought would be the expensive part of our journey through the med, the Balearics in April/may. In fact we found it the cheapest part of the journey (excepting Greece), plenty of anchorages. If you wanted a marina the PorsIB ones were as little as 12 euros a night, okay little or no facilities at some but did have water and electricity and were in some of the prettiest places we have been to.
Appreciate you want to go along the French coast but would be worth a diversion in early season.
 
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Reading all the posts about finances, there's a good chance we're not too far off the average :)...we've got a 31 foot steel yacht, which we are/will maintain mostly by ourselves (unless its something major like the engine blowing up etc), we've spent money just refitting her so a lot of new gear so hopefully not too much in maintenance costs coming up. For our trip sailing firstly the French canals to the Med (which we plan 3-4 months) then North Africa and in January across the Atlantic then south America we are budgeting approx 12k for the two of us..we will have a third who will also contribute as a third of expenses so that will also help all up.
But I am feeling a strange emotion...it will be my first time in my adult life without a steady income...oh dear!
 
As I understand it the OP was asking how to get from the south of France to Greece cheaply - coast hopping. In my experience you don't. Certainly not in high season. The options are go through the expensive bits out of season or go offshore and don't stop. In the high season the limited of amount of anchorages, transito berths seem to be full or closed by the Costieri who appear to have a strong interest in encouraging the use of overpriced marinas. They certainly enforce the rules that forbid anchoring within 200m of the coast and 300m from a beach.
 
poter said:
Also how do I get from south of France, coastal hopping, & still get where I want to go by mostly using the hook?
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Mainland Italy is where costs escalate and where anchoring opportunities are largely absent, although offshore islands are the exception. The south is rather better, along the 'foot' there are cheaper ports and some free ones. You can avoid much of the expensive part by going via Corsica, Sardinia, Sicily and the Aeolian Islands, where there are many anchorages, buoys and some cheaper marinas. We went around the Gulf of Genoa as far as Elba and paid very little or nothing for berthing. Otherwise cross from Nice to Corsica, around 100 miles IIRC. The leg from Sardinia is the longest, 160 miles.
 
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