Our Trip to West Marine

Look at all that stuff. 

We have officially almost completed everything on our "to buy" list (not so on our "to do" list!). Overall, we shelled out $4,200 on outfitting Bettie from West Marine. Our lovely dinghy took up $1,700 of that. Out of the $2,500 left, we purchased automatically inflatable PFDs with harnesses, two rearming kits, two tethers, a handheld marine GPS, a handheld VHF, two foul weather jackets, one pair of galoshes, oil, 4 oil filters, 200 feet of galvanized anchor chain, a macerator, a 500 gallon an hour bilge pump, a new washdown pump, a sump pump for the shower, spare headlamps, a giant spotlight with rechargeable batteries, a spare set of jib sheets, 80 feet of Vectran line (to use as backup rigging), 30 feet of shock cord, epoxy sticks, a fan, and 2 winch handles. Can you guess which of these things cost the most? The galvanized anchor chain, which came in at $600. Who would have guessed that out of all that equipment the most costly was basically a big hunk of metal?

I would like to give a big, humongous thank you to both of our families. They were all super generous to us for our birthdays. Our moms helped out by buying us safety gear, and Vlad's dad got us an extra VHF radio and light raincoats. My dad is helping us keep clean and caffeinated with a solar shower and a stainless steel coffee press. Thank you all so much for your love and support!

Not to give West Marine all the love, we've also outfitted through the Boaters Resale Shop in Kemah, REI, Home Depot, Sailrite, Amazon and Costco. I'll give a detailed summary of all the things we bought for the trip and where we got them in a bit. Here's a post from S/V Totem, a family who is currently cruising in the Pacific. They detailed their must haves and tips to finding good deals on expensive items, useful information for sure. 

To be honest, this is the largest spending spree I've ever been on in my life, and it's been a strange experience. At first, it felt kind of good to get all the stuff we needed after a period of extreme frugality. It was comparable to avoiding sugar for weeks and then eating a big, scrumptious slice of chocolate cake. Initially, there's a rush of excitement, that endorphin burst that comes with the first bite or with breaking through whatever budget prison you've locked yourself into, but eventually you just want an apple and to not spend your cruising kitty on an endless array of boating products.