Their story is not all THAT unusual. A couple of years ago I sold an anchor
to a couple in their late 20s from Oak Park, IL. Both had good jobs at the
Mercantile Exchange and had put away a little cash. When they got an offer
on their house that they couldn't refuse they bought a boat and took off.
They planned to spend about 2 years circumnavigating the Atlantic and
Caribbean. It has been almost 3 years now and they are in St. Vencent right
now.

The advantage of taking off early is that it is not as hard to resume a
career when you get back and you don't have as many family and financial
intanglements to deal with.

Costwise I would say these folks are about right. $30K to outfit and about
$30K/year expenses.

--
Glenn Ashmore

I'm building a 45' cutter in strip/composite. Watch my progress (or lack
there of) at: http://www.rutuonline.com
Shameless Commercial Division: http://www.spade-anchor-us.com

"Skip Gundlach" skipgundlach sez use my name at earthlink dot fishcatcher
(net) - with apologies for the spamtrap wrote in message
...
Are they independently wealthy? They appear to be the very picture of
youth
(not kids, but old enough to be my youngest, e.g.), and the list of their
budget is enough to make me squirm, let alone the money they paid, and,
most
recently, have paid, yet again, on their boat.

All well and good to say "just go, do it!" like my sig line. But
financial
realities might make their adventure a bit challenging to the hoi polloi
(who could, I agree, do a Dave Martin, if they were anxious to go, on a
markedly different budget).

Entertaining at first glance, but those of us who saved all their lives to
not come close to their acquisition and later boat costs might look at it
more like the National Geographic - nice pictures and stories, but
unlikely
to be something I'll experience...

For all that, I'm green with envy, not just financially. They're out
there
doing it, and I've not yet spent my comms and electrical and nav money,
let
alone splashed the boat!

L8R

Skip and Lydia, refitting madly but home briefly, about to return for 5
weeks straight to work on the boat

--
Morgan 461 #2
SV Flying Pig
http://tinyurl.com/384p2

"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you
didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail
away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore.
Dream. Discover." - Mark Twain
"Michael" wrote in message
...
Current multihull Circumnavigation story

http://www.bumfuzzle.com/

"Bumfuzzle / adj. / bewildered or confused; used to refer to something
you don't understand
and have no explanation for.

That pretty much sums up our feelings and also best describes the
reaction of everybody we tell about this adventure.

We, in this case, are Pat and Ali Schulte. The short story is that we
grew up near St. Paul, Minnesota and have been together since we went
to Tartan High School, class of 1992. We married in 1997. In March
of 2000 we moved to Chicago. While in Chicago we came up with this
crazy idea to sail around the world, despite the fact that neither of
us had ever been on a sailboat before. So we took Sailing 101 out on
Lake Michigan, flew to Florida to buy our boat, and here we are."