Back on the Water
I have not posted to my blog in about 3 months because, frankly, there has not been much to talk about. Our major boat repair was completed in Mid-February, but we have been dealing with other boat issues.
For those who may be interested in living on a boat someday, I will discuss our recent boat “issues.”
A couple weeks after we got back on board Satisfaction, one of our house batteries shorted out. Since we did not know how old the batteries were, we decided to replace both our house batteries. This required us to get them shipped from the US to Marsh Harbour. Because the Bahamas is trying to incentivize people to use solar energy, I was able to get the batteries duty free. This was about a $1,000 savings. The cost to ship them from Florida made the price only about 20% more than if I had bought them in the US. Fortunately, our remaining house battery was big enough to continue living on the boat, but we had to be hooked up to shore power the whole time for the one battery to last.
It only took about 2 weeks to get the batteries to Hope Town. But the battery problem was not solved yet as I had to get them installed in the boat. These AGM batteries are about twice the size of a regular wet-cell car battery and are about 4 times as heavy. One of the great things about living in the Bahamas is there are always other boaters around who are glad to help out (even better at no charge). With the help of a couple other guys, we hooked up to a sail halyard and lifted out the old batteries and lowered back in each new battery though a deck hatch. Luckily for us there was a deck hatch right over top of each battery installation location on the boat. The battery change out took about 4 hours to complete.
The cottage we rented while waiting for our boat to be repaired
Then 2 weeks later I noticed a leak in the main engine compartment. Of course, this concerned me because we had just spent a lot of money fixing a major leak in the boat. Fortunately, this leak was from a fitting in an A/C hose. Of course, we did not need our A/C at the time, but the way a previous owner had set up our A/C system, it is always open to the sea water. This took only about 2 hours to fix.
In late March our fresh water pump bit the dust. Luckily, I had brought a backup water pump from the US when we left Florida last September. I installed the new water pump, but the system still would not draw water out of either water tank. After getting another boater to look at the situation, he discovered that one of the ball valves that closes off each water tank would not close any more. This means the water system is not air tight so the water pump cannot suck any water out of the other water tank. We blocked off the tank with the ad valve with a plumbing fitting and we lived on the other water tank for a couple weeks. We were going back to the US, so I bought a couple new ball valves to replace the original ones. In the Bahamas spare parts are very important to have on your boat as most boat items you cannot get in the Bahamas.
Having all these boat issues this past winter actually did not curtail our cruising plans that much as the weather this winter was very windy. I think we may have only left the harbour 2 or 3 times for a couple days even if the boat had been available.
Envious of other boaters who could leave the harbour
So this winter we spend most of the time engaging in shore based activities. We went to parties on other people’s boats, homes, and at the Hope Town Sailing Club. We attended 2 country music concerts and several fundraising events. I also spent a few days helping a friend build his house. Yes, that is right; people build their own houses here. A boating friend of ours bought a small lot in Hope Town last year and is building a 2-story house, mostly by himself. I was impressed how far he had gotten in just 3 months.
Retirement Planning Thoughts
This past January saw a very volatile stock market. Since I had done some rebalancing a year ago, I did not need to do any major re-balancing at my annual portfolio review in January. I did decide to change my equity allocation from 40% to 35%. The stock indexes have gone up since January so it might seem like bad timing on my part. However, I was not looking to time the market with my equity allocation reduction; I was just looking to reduce my portfolio volatility.
Hanging out with other boating friends
I also added another asset class that I had not held before. I bought some gold mining stocks (specifically I bought the major gold miner ETF, Stock symbol GDX). I have owned gold/silver bullion for over a decade, but I have not owned any gold/silver mining stocks. I do not view gold bullion as an investment; I view it as insurance against economic chaos. And I view precious metals mining stocks as much too volatile to own. The reason I did buy some mining stocks in January was all of my independent investment newsletters were recommending buying gold mining stocks as well as gold bullion. Some were suggesting the global economy is going to crash leaving gold as a safe haven. Some of the newsletters I subscribe to have a contrarian investing theme. They were recommending gold/silver mining stocks just because they have been so beaten down in recent years representing a very good value. One newsletter even suggested the US may, sometime in the near future, go back on the gold standard (crazy I know, but when I read his analysis about going back to the gold standard, it did not sound that crazy).
I usually do not buy any of the recommendations of my newsletters. I just read them to get their macro view on the markets. But starting last fall, all of my newsletters started recommending everyone invest some of their assets in gold or gold mining stocks. One even suggested making a gold allocation of 20%. These newsletters rarely agree on anything, but they are now all bullish on gold and gold miners. So I bought the GDX fund making about a 2% allocation in my portfolio. Including the gold/silver bullion I own, I have about a 5% allocation to this asset class. I am not suggesting that others should buy gold or silver assets. I am only conveying what I am doing.
Enough of the boring investment talk. Here are more pictures of Bahamas activities.
Attending one of many fundraising events in Hope Town
Not all boaters in the Bahamas are of retirement age
A boating friend building his own house in Hope Town
We spent a lot of time walking the Elbow Cay beaches
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