Hopetown Arrival
Just before Thanksgiving we arrived back in Hopetown for another winter season of sailing, snorkeling, diving, parties, and meeting old and new friends.
Most of the first week or so we spent getting the boat unwrapped from hurricane season so that it is useable for the winter season. The major tasks include the following:
- Removing about two dozen lines used to tie down everything on the topsides that could not be put in the cabin or in the sail locker such as the head sail furling drum, the boom, the helm wheel, etc.,
- Reinstalling the cockpit canvas and solar panels ,
- Reinstalling the head sail,
- Pulling out all the safety gear,Taking out the anchors and installing them on the bow,
- Untying the dinghy from the deck and re-attaching the tow line,
- Removing about a dozen dock lines that were used to moor our vessel in a very wide marina slip in the case of a tropical storm,
- Cleaning out the cabin and setting out kitchen items, cushions, electronic gear, etc.
Odyssey in Hurricane Mode
Leaving our vessel in the Bahamas for the hurricane season was very convenient. It saved us six weeks of time and about $2,000 of expense each way if we had brought Odyssey back to the Chesapeake Bay in June and back to the Bahamas in November. However one disadvantage of leaving your boat in the Bahamas is you are not able to load the boat up with inexpensive supplies in the USA before coming back to the Bahamas. Dena and I each carried three bags of supplies and boat maintenance items with us on our flights back to the Bahamas. Everything else we need will be bought at much higher prices here.
The Elbow Cay Boxcart Races
We had Thanksgiving dinner with some friends at a local waterfront restaurant. The day after Thanksgiving we attended the 25th annual Elbow Cay Box Car races. This is a fun day and one of the few events that does not revolve around water.
In early December we enjoyed a weekend of concerts by a group of Nashville Songwriters. These concerts are fundraisers for several organizations on Elbow Cay. The country singers held a concert at four different resorts on Elbow Cay throughout the weekend.
This past weekend we attended the Hopetown primary school Christmas play. There are many Christmas parties and holiday events over the next couple weeks which make it hard to get the boat out of the harbour. However the weather has been very windy with a lot more rain than usual since we arrived.
There is no Place like the Bahamas
Since this blog site is named “Retirement Planning Simplified” I thought I might start ending each post with a retirement planning “helpful hint.” So this post’s planning hint is a simple one.
Retirement Planning Helpful Hint
When changing employers do not “Roll over” your retirement funds from your old employer’s 401(k) plan to your new employer’s 401(k) plan. Generally speaking employer 401(k) plans are high cost investment vehicles (i.e., the mutual funds have high costs to pay for the employer’s plan). Also 401(k) plans rarely have a lot of good investment choices. When you leave an employer, roll over your 401(k) funds to an Individual Retirement Account (IRA). In my opinion Vanguard and Fidelity are the best firms with lots of investment choices with very low fees, but almost any IRA administrator would be better than an employer 401(k) plan. Even moving your retirement funds into an IRA with the same investment firm that holds your former employer’s 401(k) plan is better than keeping it in the 401(k) plan because of the expanded investment choices.
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