Jim,
Expanding on what kapnkd said, since you plan on spending most nights in marinas, being a member of an
Inter-Lake Yachting Association (I-LYA) affiliated club is a huge help. You can’t directly join I-LYA. You have to be a member of a member club. Since you’re in Boardman, I’d guess you dock in one of the clubs east of Cleveland. Several of those are I-LYA clubs. If you’re not in one of those, you can (and should) join
Great Lakes Cruising Club (GLCC) – which grants you I-LYA membership. This gives you transient access to way more clubs than you’d have available otherwise – and you’ll sometimes get a night or two free. Even if you already have I-LYA membership covered, I’d still recommend GLCC. I’ve found their online port reports to be invaluable in my cruising. It’s some of the best and most up to date cruising information for the Great Lakes available. Another wonderful benefit of GLCC is that almost every port has a port captain. You’ll have a phone number of someone in virtually every port who is eager to give you a hand to help you out of a rough spot – or tell you the best restaurant nearby.
I’ve become a bit of a spare part junkie. If one is good, two is obviously better. When I use a part, I tend to buy two to replace it – leaving me with three. If I could buy enough parts to build a second engine, I might feel comfortable about it. I’ll let you know. Obviously, the parts that I know how to replace get bought first. I’ve taken some basic diesel maintenance classes which made my list of self-replaceable parts larger. This was a great investment.
If I ever use a tool from home on the boat, it stays on the boat. I can drive to the store if I need a new tool at home. It’s not as easy on the water-or some remote marina.
Storage – particularly for clothes – is my biggest challenge on my 30+ when I’m on a cruise. A pair of khakis and a several club worthy shirts go in the hanging locker. I bring two laundry baskets for the rest. One basket has the clean clothes, the other holds the dirty. When the clean basket is empty (or nearly so), I find a place to do laundry. Luckily, I single-hand most of the time so I go a lot longer between needing to do laundry than I would if I had my wife with me. I’d love a better solution to this. I’ll be looking to how you handle it on your “retirement” cruise to help me when I do mine.
My other big discovery for storage is that I go through all the lockers at least annually. If I’ve not used an item in a couple years, I’m likely never going to and I bring it home to fill a misfit shelf in the garage. Of course, there’s a lot of internal debate for every item that gets purged. But this single behavior is the reason I have any storage space at all.
Customs is a whole other issue and I’ve had pretty good luck with the
Small Vessel Reporting Service (SVRS). It’s free to join. You’ll need to go for an interview and get fingerprinted at a Customs office. But it will allow you to enter back into the U.S. with just a phone call. You log and activate your float plan ahead of time. Upon your arrival back in the U.S., call an 800 number, give them the active float plan number and they’ll give you a number to clear you back into the U.S. I’ve done it about a dozen times. Once, on a Sunday night, I had a hard time getting a human on the line and it took me 45 minutes. Every other time, I was checked in in 3-5 minutes - while on my own boat. If you also fly internationally, you might consider joining the
Global Entry program first. It costs $100 for five years and may ease some airport travel for you. Its interview process is similar to the one you’d have to do for SVRS. BUT, once it’s complete, you can create your SVRS account without another interview. It’s two birds with one stone.
I’d love to hear the plans for your cruise. When are you planning your departure?