Do You Know of Anyone Who Quit Right Away ?

[John A]

Originally Posted by hummingway

Hate to be the last one... half here and half there!

Beware, you call yourself a boatbum. You ain't seen nothing yet.

You find them anchoured out all over the world. Solo, lonely, boat turned into a junk boat with the deck littered with stuff piled high, four inches of growth on the hull, drunk by 10am. The dream gone.

The Sea of Cortez, Lake Worth, St Thomas, I've passed several. I've helped two to a hospital, notified their children, watched their boat until someone comes to claim it and the one in the hospital. Sad.

It's the other side of life and cruising.

[SaltyMonkey]

Maybe instead of all the sad stories, and the successful "well preparedness" infomercials we always see, someone should write a guide for people who actually get themselves into that close to abandonment situation, and need to turn it around but don't understand how. I think its possible to adjust...

Just sayin'...

[John A]

Originally Posted by SaltyMonkey

Maybe instead of all the sad stories, and the successful "well preparedness" infomercials we always see, someone should write a guide for people who actually get themselves into that close to abandonment situation, and need to turn it around but don't understand how. I think its possible to adjust...

Just sayin'...

When it's time to quit, it's time to quit and adjustment is a part of quitting. A guide for growing older and adjusting to the fact that your life was as good as it was every going to be, was ten years ago would serve no purpose, 'cause none of us will admit to growing older..

Rather we should keep the dream alive, to keep a positive outlook, to plot and plan to enjoy the adventure of our lifetime and to share it with those we love. Ain't nothing wrong with that !!

My boat was rammed in the Bahamas and I now live in Vancouver, Washington. Quit? Not on your life !! I just adjusted to what the reality of my life became.

[David_Old_Jersey]

Originally Posted by SaltyMonkey

Maybe instead of all the sad stories, and the successful "well preparedness" infomercials we always see, someone should write a guide for people who actually get themselves into that close to abandonment situation, and need to turn it around but don't understand how. I think its possible to adjust...

Just sayin'...

I dunno about the boat end of the line thing, but a frequent enough story in South East Asia. Not so sure it often really is turnaroundable. some voyages are meant to be 1 way.......takes a lot of time and effort and events to get past the point of no return. but coming back is sometimes doable. just sometimes hard to remember why one bothered

[hummingway]

Originally Posted by John A

Beware, you call yourself a boatbum. You ain't seen nothing yet.

It's OK. I'm not superstitous though I do have a sense of humour.

[barnakiel]

I think I know more people who quit than people who stayed. The fact is great many of them who quit did so in a very subtle way.

b.

[hummingway]

Originally Posted by barnakiel

I think I know more people who quit than people who stayed. The fact is great many of them who quit did so in a very subtle way.

b.

Very nice Barny. That could be an apt description of the transition from the youthful vision of a perfect life to the reality of life in the worldas well.

[boatman61]

I used to think I'd sail round the world...
But to be honest I don't have the desire anymore...
I lost it halfway through my first voyage to the Med... nothing had scared me... !!
I just realised I could get all the excitement and variety I wanted in the Nth Atlantic, Med and Caribbean....
Looking back 'The Sail Round The World Dream' was what kept me going till the first boat I felt at the time was big enough to take me further than France.. once I'd hit the Biscay if faded away... I was voyaging...
Maybe one day the urge will hit again... who knows...
Never thought I'd take up Wind & Kite surfing either...lol

[SaltyMonkey]

I don't think we should polarize or say this and thus is the end of the road. It becomes pretentious the posturing, the self importance of any of it. I see it all the time:

Arm Chairs vs People Who Own Boats.

People who Quit/"fail" vs People who succeed or think they do.

The flow comes and goes...People may need to quit or fail a number of times before they get the groove. People on the fence of things can end up getting their boats and show they are better than the naysayer so called "experts". And then there are those that were all prepared, well established and ran into some bad bad luck out of their control...even if they did everything correctly.

Whats important is the journey, even if you never get to the point of getting a boat you will learn something. Change your mind a million zillion times, say naive things...it doesn't matter.

[beowulfborealis]

I found a good website called "Cruising for Dummies" and its about buying a cruiser and spending a few years doing it with zero experience.

Cruising for Dummies, Cruising Handbook by the Trouser Rollers, everything about the blue-water cruising life from A to Z

They kept right on going after selling the boat and doing the RV thing across North America.

I am so pumped. I just gotta sell my house now. And take some sailing classes...and find a boat...and pack.

...and buy a Hunter. Yes I know, I am going to die out there...

[Walt]

I recently bought my boat about 200 miles away from my home. I set out by myself to sail it down the Chesapeake Bay the first week in October. Now I realize that it wasn't a "blue water" cruise, but it has certainly ignited a fire inside me. I'm ready to head out on the next adventure, and I want to take my wife with me. There is something inspiring about anchoring in a secluded cove, and waking in the middle of the night to see all of the stars.

[osirissail]

I would tend to disagree with the idea that a lot of cruisers opt out due to financial hardships. It is my experience over the years with middle aged to senior cruisers that the cruising life just becomes boring and repetitive.
- - Maybe the young $500/mo drop out when their floating home turns into a money eating shark - or - they just have too many girlfriends scattered throughout every port and they cannot return for fear of a permanent entanglement. (Trying to be polite here but "shotgun" has a keyword significance).
- - I have also known plenty of "minimalist" cruisers who had to go home because a storm has sunk their boat and recovering it was just not practical. The hurricane season each year takes a heavy toll on the minimalist cruiser.
- - But amongst the older cruisers - other than dedicated round-the-world'ers - once you have seen the same lush string of tropical islands for 3 or 5 seasons, you start dreaming of other places and other ways of cruising. I have seen more than a few switch to "land cruising."

- - Additionally I think John A has a good point. Happiness has a lot to do with adaptability. According to current research there were 5 different branches of homo-erectus running around what is now known as Africa. Only one survived - our branch - not because we were the best but because we were the most adaptable of the five. When the world changed, our ancestors could adapt and think of new ways to surviving. I think that has carried over to the present and the happy folks are those that can pick up their "kit" and go out and find a new way to be happy. Those that cannot adapt all too soon become extinct.

[SurferShane]

I almost felt like quitting when I had a run in with someone else’s stray mooring rope on an unmentionable FNQ island not long after I bought the boat. To that day the boat was in perfect mechanical order. The incident basically destroyed the engine and drive system. Being a “newbie” it turned into slander campaign and the final straw was when someone posted something on the web about how they were expecting my boat to end up abandoned and selling for next to nothing.

I was that pissed off that instead of thinking about selling the boat I was actually going to go back up there and sink her. No way was anyone else going to take advantage of me and God help anyone who tried. Luckily commonsense eventually got the better of me and I used the insurance claim to buy a new sail, fix another, pay for the hardstand and finance the recovery.

My simple plan was to head out wide, put the sail up and relax back for a few weeks as the wind and currents drifted me home. Unfortunately though the voyage was to be 90% upwind and swell. At a port down the coast I got a helping hand off an old sea salt who helped me understand the sail plan and fix the drive shaft. It was a blessing and I am really thankful that I never gave in.

[cat man do]

Originally Posted by MarkJ

Those planning to go are often so brain deluded (rebuilding a boat for 5 years is a classic example... then when finished they realise they can't sail and hate it anyway, and they're broke!). People need to sweep the stary-eyed dreams away from their 2 IQ point brains...

Unfortunately not all of us have $500,000 lying around in cash to go and buy what they are building off the shelf (if it even exists)

[Gadagirl]

Originally Posted by SaltyMonkey

Maybe instead of all the sad stories, and the successful "well preparedness" infomercials we always see, someone should write a guide for people who actually get themselves into that close to abandonment situation, and need to turn it around but don't understand how. I think its possible to adjust...

Just sayin'...

LOL Sounds like an intervention.

This has been a very intriguing and quite confusing thread for me. Go. Don't go. Go but only if you do do it in the style I am accustomed to. Get a hair cut and a job. We're all gonna die! You are gonna die. You might kill me in the process! If you have my skill level I'll condone your plan. Yes, no, yes, no, on and on, and on and on.....................

What's it all about? The journey. None of your business if a person changes course or adjusts to circumstance. That's not failure or success. It's just being and doing and as happy as one can be.

Shoot for the moon land on the barn, shoot for the stars land on the moon. What ever your collective or individual opinions are, People choose their own path. Their own journey. And I'd advice all to do just that. It's all about the individual's journey and dreams. And your place in life, IMO, should be measured not on the opinions or comparison of others but in the amount of joy that you personally retrieve from one's own current experience. In other words, it's not for any of us to say. It's all rhetoric at this point right?

All I know are my own dreams and goals. I take the practical advice to heart. I ignore the negative like it's the devil, and it is. And I strive, but I'm enjoying every moment along the way.It's always about the journey and discoveries to me.