Gifts for cruisers – what a conundrum! Father’s Day is coming soon. And then there are always birthdays, anniversaries, and the end-of-the-year gift buying season. But if the person you’re buying a gift is a cruiser, you might need a few good suggestions. We’ve got you covered.
I’ll be honest, Dave and I don’t really give each other “gifts” anymore in the sense of jewelry, or clothing. It’s almost always boat stuff, and often things that we decide upon jointly. Maybe some gear for the boat, or a new cruising guide to keep us focused on our plans. It just makes sense when your home is so compact. Practical gifts rule.
And besides, isn’t the cruising life itself a gift?
Practical Gift Buying For Cruisers
One of the reasons I started TBG back in 2010 was to tell people about gear we’d found that stood up to boat life . . . or didn’t. The website now has over 500 gear reviews and you can find all our Amazon product recommendations here.
Sometimes, what I wanted just didn’t exist. And that’s how The Boat Galley has moved into creating our own products, which we sell both on Amazon and in our own online store. It started with a plastic bag of recipes and tips for cooking on board that became The Boat Galley Cookbook. Together with the rest of The Boat Galley team – there are six of us now – we’ve come up with a variety of references and ways to organize your boat information.
Basically we’ve sat around – generally by text, since we’re cruising all over the place – and brainstormed what frustrated us about an existing product, situation, or chore, and what our ideal solution would be. Then we set out to create it!
Cruising Guides – A Gift That Keeps Giving
For example, five of us transited all or parts of the ICW in 2020/21. We all found ourselves making notes for the next day’s run, with bridge info, fuel and water stops, potential anchorages, and lists of places where we had to pay especially close attention to the route. I think it was Larry who said, “I can’t believe that lists of this info don’t already exist somewhere. Does everyone read through the cruising guides and click on all the Active Captain notes and make their own? Every night?” And with that, the idea for our first Quick Reference Cruising Guide was born.
I guess other cruisers liked the idea of spending their evenings doing something other than making lists, because we sold out of the first printing in less than 9 months. We’re now on the second edition, and added some features that readers requested, such as an easy way to find an anchorage for the forecast wind direction. And that’s one of the things I love about creating our products – you give us a lot of feedback and since we’re a small company with small production runs, we can constantly improve them.
Now we’ve got a total of four quick reference cruising guides out:
- ICW (now available in PDF as well as print so you can download it if you want it immediately; no mailing address needed)
- Bahamas
- Florida Loop (Keys and Okeechobee Waterway)
- Florida Gulf Coast
All that to say, we want to help you find the ideal gifts for your boat-mates. Whether it’s our products or ones we review, we want to make your boat life better!
And don’t forget–you’re supporting a small (micro?) business and six cruisers when you buy our products. But don’t buy from us just to support us . . . buy from us because our products are great!
Heading to the Bahamas? Make planning your trip a breeze:
And check out our other courses and products
Leave a Reply