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.

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.

In article ,
Rosalie B. wrote:

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.


Oh, this deserves special note, as it's easily observable truth.

--
Jere Lull
Xan-a-Deux ('73 Tanzer 28 #4 out of Tolchester, MD)
Xan's Pages: http://members.dca.net/jerelull/X-Main.html
Our BVI FAQs (290+ pics) http://homepage.mac.com/jerelull/BVI/

Jere Lull wrote:
In article ,
Rosalie B. wrote:


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.



Oh, this deserves special note, as it's easily observable truth.

OTOH, we did meet a nice Canadian couple in Grand Turk who were
cruising on their huge trimaran that they had built while awaiting
retirement. I'm sure it was a lot of work, but they owned it out
right.

Don W.

On Mon, 15 Aug 2005 03:33:03 GMT, Jere Lull wrote:

In article ,
Rosalie B. wrote:

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.


Oh, this deserves special note, as it's easily observable truth.

Agreed, but I would make a side observation that I've found has
real-life application.

If a home builder of some skill (say a professional welder working
from a Bruce Roberts kit) gets to the 90% complete mark in finishing a
cruiser (say, temporary "plywood and bench" interior, but with engine,
mast(s) and all hull work finished), and then decides to give it up
due to a host of reasons (age, illness, loss of interest in cruising
offshore), you can purchase the equivalent of a $150,000 vessel for a
small percentage, and then have it custom-finished to your
specifications.

I have looked at several such boats, ranging from "hopelessly rusting
empty hulls" to "just add teak", and it is very surprising just how
finished an unfinished and "hard to sell" boat can be.

Obviously, competant and focussed surveying is essential in such
cases, as is a willingness to shell out to a decent carpenter/boatyard
to get the thing complete. This, however, can be a real opportunity
and can save tens of thousands of dollars if done right.

There are a lot of "stillborn" boats out there, but some can be
successfully revived.

This has to be offset by the availability of decent used boats in your
area, price point, etc., but I've seen some half-finished interiors
that have allowed me to peer at absolutely top-notch gear and systems
that will never see the ocean when a capable home builder falls ill,
gives up or dies.

A tad ghoulish, but there it is. Better the boat gets used than not.

R.

"rhys" wrote in message
...
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.

Sounds like a good plan, especially have to agree with the bit about doing
it now when you're able to. Met a fair number of older cruisers last spring
in Trinidad that were giving up the sea cruising lifestyle for land
cruising, the common reason given was advancing age, I also suspect that the
wives were getting sick of living aboard full time.

John Cairns