Scott here!

How much have we spent so far??

Here are our stats so far on our Great Loop adventure. We were on the water for 211 nights. Our total cost for marinas and mooring balls was $13,799.40. 157 of those 211 nights we were in a marina or on a mooring ball. The other 54 nights we were either at anchorages, free walls or docks, or were moving in the evening. Put that all together and we spent $65.40 a night to stay someplace.

Travel days: 81
Total days: 211
Engine hours: 1,002.40
Total time traveling: 1,017.16 hours
Distance traveled: 4,033.2 miles

Marina: 138 nights at 36 different marinas
Anchorage: 48 nights at 22 different anchorages
Free dock (municipal, wall, or restaurant): 6 nights at 6 different locations
Mooring ball: 19 nights at 5 different locations
Moving: 1 night we were moving and didn’t stay anywhere

Alright, I know the travel hours can’t be more than the engine hours . How can we travel longer than the engines are running? Well, we may not always turn off Aqua Maps (the navigation program we use) after docking or anchoring. There is always a time lag. Nothing is perfect!

Fuel costs

Our next biggest expense was fuel costs.

Total cost of diesel: $10,768.33
Number of times we fueled up: 23
Total gallons of diesel: 2,229.48
Lowest per gallon cost of diesel: $3.69 in Myrtle Beach, SC
Highest per gallon cost of diesel: $6.29 in Moss Town, Bahamas
Average per gallon cost of diesel: $4.796 per gallon
Average gallons per mile: 1.90
Our total cost of gas for our dinghy was $161.64 for 27.178 gallons. We did not keep any other stats for our dinghy gas usage.

Equipment and maintenance

Other costs such as miscellaneous boat stuff purchased was $1,700.08.  Cleaning products, dock lines, Waterway guide, etc.  Nothing too exciting or outrageously expensive.

Maintenance costs was around $10,855.49.  This included some things that broke (or I broke) as well as wash, wax and polishing the boat, and routine maintenance that needs to get done anyway.

Total cost for equipment and maintenance was $12,555.57

All these costs (marina, fuel, maintenance) make a grand total of $37,123.30. That is about $175.94 a day. I know the next question would be how close is that to your budget? That’s what I would ask!

Roughly, this is what I planned:

Marinas: $10,550 (I guessed $50 a night for each night on the Loop) 23% off to the bad.
Fuel: $11,147.40 (I guessed $4-5 a gallon at 1 mile per gallon) 3.4% off to the good.
Maintenance and equipment: $5,780.82 (I guessed $10,000 per year or $27.39 per day) 53.9% to the bad.

Planned expenses: $27,478.  I was about $10,000 off I guess!  It seems my maintenance cost was off a little.  I should have planned on more things breaking I guess.  That will be good information to know when we finish up the Loop!

So far it has been worth it and I am looking forward to finishing up the Loop in 2025.

Here are some photos that jumped out at me as I went through them.