Had a very rough day at work and seriously thought about quitting and sailing away! Not going to happen today. I need the second pension available to me when I'm 55. Plus I need a larger boat.
I'll have about $1,500 after taxes then, not much when on land but I figure slowly moving around the globe, living off the hook as much as possible, wearing very little clothing to save on laundry soap:), we should be able to swing it.
What will be a huge help is just getting away from our consumer driven society! Cruising by its very nature is a frugal lifestyle, I mean, you only have so much room on board to hoard (Hee, hee, board and hoard rhyme) your purchases.
One flaw in that is that both the wife and I are voracious readers. We love our books. Maybe Kindle or some other electronic reader will help us out, we'll see.
We have two major expenditures coming up. First and foremost is our daughters university tuition. We will pay for her first degree, and only her first degree, any further edumafacation will be at her expense. The second expense will be upgrading our boat to a larger one.
We have a friend, well actually he is my sailing guru, who insists that we need a 40' boat at least. he's probably correct, as he is on most things. This leads back to the money thing....the bigger the boat, the more expensive the equipment becomes. Prices remain reasonable below 38'. So as frugal sailors he will have to swallow his shame when we raft up beside him in our toy boat. His palace is 46' long. But as I tell my wife, size isn't everything:)
Yup, I see a lot of canned stew and Kraft dinner in my future, and cheap Caribbean rum:)
About Me
- Allan S
- Ex Canadian Navy, now work in a hospital, new to sailing after a twenty odd year hiatus. Married for 22 years with one 21 year old daughter starting her third year of university.
6 comments:
OK good, it's not just me. Very few days go by that I don't want to quit and sail away. If only I could get the wife to do it now, but that ain't gonna happen. Fortuantly I have been saving for college since the kid was born, so when he is ready to go, I am done!
I am not sure though I agree with cruising in a 40 footer. I think I could be very happy in the Cal 34, but maybe another couple feet would be good. 40 feet is big but of course costs big. Keep your eyes open and really think about what would work. Good luck. oh, and you really need to sail south. Get down to Florida and give me a shout. Jim
What's the saying lets ..just do it ....?? But then Hailey would hunt us down and kill us slowly for breaking the promise to pay for her univercity(beacsuse we really would not be able to do both at once AND STILL HAVE $$ FOR FOOD!!)....so we's have to cut all tes to her ..hmm nope I'm not ready for that yet!! Just 6 more years honey ...time ....flies fast..xoxoxo
Well... I don't agree on the 40 feet either. What you should go with is the smallest possible boat you would be happy and comfortable to sail. Only you guys can tell what that is. It could be everything from 25 to 100+ feet :)
As for us. The admiral wanted the boat we have now and she got it :) I would have been perfectly happy on 28 feet though. That doesn't mean I don't love Ingeborg. She's great.
I know you'll find what you need, just don't let anyone else tell you what that is.
/Hampus
The only problem with a boat smaller than 35 feet is that Allan is 6'3 and needs to be able to stand up in it:) Plus if we leave now well be living off less then $1000 per month ....and that is just not do-able sadly....considering we promised our daughter we would pay for her first degree....so 6 years from now is really the only choice...thought I'd love to leave right now!!! Especially when we both hate the cold Canadian weather and the long winters of not sailing in addition to our jobs!! Now if we win the jackpot or rob a bank we will definatly be leaving earlier!!
The Cal 34 has just over 6'2 in headroom... just sayin'... :)
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