Sailorgirl
 

http://www.sailorgirl.com/

"If you're sitting in front of a screen, cruising through this site
thinking to yourself, "boy, I wish I were there", I have a question
for you. Why aren't you? You know all those cliches like, life is
short, there's no dress rehearsal in life? Well guess what, they're
true. It doesn't take a million dollars to live well, it just takes a
little motivation. (although if you'd like to send a million dollars
Sailorgirl's way, it wouldn't be turned down!)"

"Sailorgirl Attitude: You cannot discover new oceans unless you're
willing to lose sight of the shore."

I hear this sort of thing a lot, that life is short and people should
do what they really want to do etc.....However, i think many people
talk about doing things they really do NOT want to do as if they would
like to do them. Cruising can be stressful, like, "Will my anchor
hold..." When the opportunity really comes, many people will find they
really do not want to sail away because normal life really is
comfortable while life on a 27' boat will be fairly uncomfortable a
lot.
I have friends who spent years building their dream boat and finally
sailed away last year after defferring sailing for years. I was
shocked to see them back here recently and was told that they had spent
most of last year avoiding storms (many hurricanes) and the cruising
kitty was empty. They were back to look for jobs...........huh? I
wonder, did they find that the cruising life was really not that great?
That seems like a lot of effort to find that out.
Many people are tied down by real circumstances, like children who make
it very difficult to buy a 35' boat and you know that 3 kids cannot
live on a 27' boat. Children do not have to be the thing that ties you
down but they really do change your perspective on life and preceived
dangers.
Some of us (myself) talk a lot about cruising but are so in love with
our work that we would not be able to give it up even to sail. Life is
a constant compromise between our love of cruising and our love for our
work.
If a person constantly says " I would love to be doing ######## if I
just could" and then does nothing to achieve that dream does need some
waking up but I really see very few of them.

On 12 Aug 2005 13:33:27 -0700, wrote:

I hear this sort of thing a lot, that life is short and people should
do what they really want to do etc.....However, i think many people
talk about doing things they really do NOT want to do as if they would
like to do them. Cruising can be stressful, like, "Will my anchor
hold..." When the opportunity really comes, many people will find they
really do not want to sail away because normal life really is
comfortable while life on a 27' boat will be fairly uncomfortable a
lot.

That is why our game plan for five-seven years of world cruising in
mid-life includes the following:

1) Have the wife take a teacher's degree to teach our kid and to offer
a tutor service to fellow cruisers and/or teaching terms ashore. Learn
diesel maintenance, celestial, diving.

2) Develop new markets for my (successful) freelance writing into the
travel/sail/tech aboard fields...not a stretch.

3) Spend as much time as possible living aboard in Lake Ontario on our
present boat, which is old school and pretty minimal, but big enough
to tackle bad weather.

4) Join passagemakers as crew to see if life on salt water is really
for us.

5) Repeat.

6) Repeat. Repeat until you've got some real sea hours and you get
sensibly frightened, but reasonably experienced. G

7) Rejig paid off house as income rental property, and THEN get a 50%
mortgage against it and go ocean-boat shopping.

8) Live aboard new used boat in Toronto for one year while house is
renting out. Try to replicate cruising life by finding what works,
what doesn't.

Only if each of those steps works out--particularly both of us making
separate offshore trips as crew and then TOGETHER as crew--would we
actually get a new boat. The boat we have is offshore capable--many
have gone to the Carribean, for instance, but is too small and tender
for my tastes. But all the human elements have to be in place before I
would essentially mortgage my future to take a mid-life sabbatical.

However, the rationale is to go NOW and not when advancing years,
health issues or putting a kid through college make it less likely. We
want to be at sea (or as foreign-based live-aboards) when my kid is
between seven/eight to 13-14, at which point we plan to get him back
for high school with some real life experience under his belt instead
of Nintendo thumb and a pasty fat arse.

Wish us well...the house is paid off in six months and the sextant is
becoming familiar and the wife's applying for teacher's college this
fall.

R.

Good luck and I hope you love it.

On Fri, 12 Aug 2005 13:05:03 GMT, (Mic) wrote:

http://www.sailorgirl.com/

"If you're sitting in front of a screen, cruising through this site
thinking to yourself, "boy, I wish I were there", I have a question
for you. Why aren't you? You know all those cliches like, life is
short, there's no dress rehearsal in life? Well guess what, they're
true. It doesn't take a million dollars to live well, it just takes a
little motivation. (although if you'd like to send a million dollars
Sailorgirl's way, it wouldn't be turned down!)"

"Sailorgirl Attitude: You cannot discover new oceans unless you're
willing to lose sight of the shore."

You make a good point.
One thing that sticks in my mind is something a (long ago) French girl
friend told me,,,"You only do what you *really* want to do in
life....seldom what you *think* you want to do."

Me? I retired,,I bought the boat...I spent the boat fund rebuilding
her...I took a contract, and went back to work. Just so you know..the
boat had to stand on it's own...no money from savings nor retirement
income nor credit cards goes towards the boat. Hmmm I wonder if that
should tell me something..:)
Norm B

Know a young couple who put 100k into building their own world cruiser. Had
a couple kids while doing the building. Big day arrived and they left Puget
Sound on the world cruise. Got as far as Oregon and decided cruising was not
their bag!
Boat has been on the hard the past 10 years. But someday...........
Gordon
"Mic" wrote in message
...
http://www.sailorgirl.com/

"If you're sitting in front of a screen, cruising through this site
thinking to yourself, "boy, I wish I were there", I have a question
for you. Why aren't you? You know all those cliches like, life is
short, there's no dress rehearsal in life? Well guess what, they're
true. It doesn't take a million dollars to live well, it just takes a
little motivation. (although if you'd like to send a million dollars
Sailorgirl's way, it wouldn't be turned down!)"

"Sailorgirl Attitude: You cannot discover new oceans unless you're
willing to lose sight of the shore."

There ought to be some way for people to see if they like this
lifestyle before they spend years planning just to find they hate it.
Chartering doesnt do it cuz you do not have the same cares or
pressures. Maybe it is best to go now and go smaller. I mean go now
with a smaller boat like Sailorgirl on a 27'. I decided that I couldnt
justify getting a larger boat than my 28' S2 because this size is just
what I can handle and she isnt a financial burden when I am not using
her. Besides, she's paid for long ago. If she gets destroyed somehow,
it's no major deal and wont break me.
Somebody ought to get a fleet of old mid-size boats together in a cheap
place in FL and lease (option to buy with part of lease payments going
toward purchase) them to people who want to try the cruising life
without spending yrs planning.
Gordon wrote:
Know a young couple who put 100k into building their own world cruiser. Had
a couple kids while doing the building. Big day arrived and they left Puget
Sound on the world cruise. Got as far as Oregon and decided cruising was not
their bag!
Boat has been on the hard the past 10 years. But someday...........
Gordon
"Mic" wrote in message
...
http://www.sailorgirl.com/

"If you're sitting in front of a screen, cruising through this site
thinking to yourself, "boy, I wish I were there", I have a question
for you. Why aren't you? You know all those cliches like, life is
short, there's no dress rehearsal in life? Well guess what, they're
true. It doesn't take a million dollars to live well, it just takes a
little motivation. (although if you'd like to send a million dollars
Sailorgirl's way, it wouldn't be turned down!)"

"Sailorgirl Attitude: You cannot discover new oceans unless you're
willing to lose sight of the shore."

rhys wrote:

On 12 Aug 2005 13:33:27 -0700, wrote:

I hear this sort of thing a lot, that life is short and people should
do what they really want to do etc.....However, i think many people
talk about doing things they really do NOT want to do as if they would
like to do them. Cruising can be stressful, like, "Will my anchor
hold..." When the opportunity really comes, many people will find they
really do not want to sail away because normal life really is
comfortable while life on a 27' boat will be fairly uncomfortable a
lot.
snip
If a person constantly says " I would love to be doing ######## if I
just could" and then does nothing to achieve that dream does need some
waking up but I really see very few of them.

That's why I object to the 'follow your dreams' type rhetoric. And
the subsequent 'broken dreams' thing.

Plans---- I can go with plans. Not dreams.

I have friends who spent years building their dream boat and finally
sailed away last year after defferring sailing for years.

You should only spend years building a boat IMHO if your dream is boat
building. If your dream is sailing, the buy a boat and sail.

That is why our game plan for five-seven years of world cruising in
mid-life includes the following:

1) Have the wife take a teacher's degree to teach our kid and to offer
a tutor service to fellow cruisers and/or teaching terms ashore. Learn
diesel maintenance, celestial, diving.

I'm not so sure that a teaching degree will be that useful. I have
one, and there were a few nuggets of useful information in there, but
there was a lot of other stuff that I would not need to teach one
child or tutor a small group. It may be a large expense for little
return.

I'm also not sure about the celestial.

2) Develop new markets for my (successful) freelance writing into the
travel/sail/tech aboard fields...not a stretch.

3) Spend as much time as possible living aboard in Lake Ontario on our
present boat, which is old school and pretty minimal, but big enough
to tackle bad weather.

4) Join passagemakers as crew to see if life on salt water is really
for us.

5) Repeat.

6) Repeat. Repeat until you've got some real sea hours and you get
sensibly frightened, but reasonably experienced. G

7) Rejig paid off house as income rental property, and THEN get a 50%
mortgage against it and go ocean-boat shopping.

8) Live aboard new used boat in Toronto for one year while house is
renting out. Try to replicate cruising life by finding what works,
what doesn't.

Only if each of those steps works out--particularly both of us making
separate offshore trips as crew and then TOGETHER as crew--would we
actually get a new boat. The boat we have is offshore capable--many
have gone to the Carribean, for instance, but is too small and tender
for my tastes. But all the human elements have to be in place before I
would essentially mortgage my future to take a mid-life sabbatical.

However, the rationale is to go NOW and not when advancing years,
health issues or putting a kid through college make it less likely. We
want to be at sea (or as foreign-based live-aboards) when my kid is
between seven/eight to 13-14, at which point we plan to get him back
for high school with some real life experience under his belt instead
of Nintendo thumb and a pasty fat arse.

This is a good time frame AFA the kids are concerned I think.

Wish us well...the house is paid off in six months and the sextant is
becoming familiar and the wife's applying for teacher's college this
fall.

R.

grandma Rosalie

On Sat, 13 Aug 2005 13:07:03 GMT, Rosalie B.
wrote:


I'm not so sure that a teaching degree will be that useful. I have
one, and there were a few nuggets of useful information in there, but
there was a lot of other stuff that I would not need to teach one
child or tutor a small group. It may be a large expense for little
return.

It's not for cruising, it's for shoreside life. There's a big shortage
of female, circa 30, hard science teachers in our province. If she
started teaching for a year or two, she'd be square with the union and
the pension fund and *then* could sail off for five years knowing
there's a job (very, very likely) waiting for her. Also, having the
qualifications makes "boat-schooling" a lot easier to pass muster with
educational departments, AND means you have a real diploma to present
to foreign school systems (many of which aren't picky about foreign,
temporary teachers), and to the boating community at large.


I'm also not sure about the celestial.

I am if only because it's a big, bad world out there and may get worse
in the next ten years. GPS...and large chunks of the Internet for that
matter...can be turned off, as they are essentially creations of the
American military. The stars can't. Besides, it's an autonomous skill
that takes time to master, like braiding a Turk's Head or knowing wire
to rope splicing...it's a part of seamanship.


This is a good time frame AFA the kids are concerned I think.

That's what we are thinking. After 14, he'll have other, more earthy
interests.

R.

On Fri, 12 Aug 2005 20:34:09 -0700, "Gordon"
wrote:

Know a young couple who put 100k into building their own world cruiser. Had
a couple kids while doing the building. Big day arrived and they left Puget
Sound on the world cruise. Got as far as Oregon and decided cruising was not
their bag!
Boat has been on the hard the past 10 years. But someday...........
Gordon

I don't wish to seem as if I am waiting to pounce on such situations,
but that's how I fully expect to find our boat: someone who turned
back, or started too late, and now has a 90-99% ocean-ready vessel on
the hard eating yard fees.

R.