Free as in free beer

I was reading about Deep Blue's visit to the Italian town of Brindisi where they moored against the free town quay. While sailing in general can be very expensive it always surprises me how much free you can find if you want to. Cruising people often work with budgets, the more free they find the longer they can keep sailing without having to work;-) So it did not surprise me that a search for 'free' on many blue water sailing blogs shows lots of interesting results... Or as Toast Floats put it a while back:

Gas is expensive. Diesel is really expensive. Sailing is free.

I should have bumper stickers made. Sailing is free.

I love the irony of that statement. Let us remember it contradicts another favorite saying of mine, “Owning a sailboat in the Pacific Northwest is like standing in a shower and ripping up $100 bills.

However, as a cruiser, you really can start to take advantage of the freeness thing. It's not like you are in any great hurry to go anywhere, right? So if you pull out of the anchorage and the wind is only 6 knots, what the hell. Put up the sail and let the wind carry you towards your destination. Never mind that the resulting speed over ground is something less than a full trot for a chihuahua in a hurry to take a piss. This mode of travel earns you the privilege of smugly reducing your carbon foot print while you take in the sights.