Any early retirees turned cruisers with big careers have regrets?

[LauraleeG]

Originally Posted by theDangerz

Thank you for that refreshing and very pertinent addition (and good on you two!!!)

If only we could find a way for all those sitting round the harbor back home... those who are terrified to make the leap and stuck with no other option than to listen those who never left, or those who turned back around round because it wasn't right for them (or thomm) to hear those words from you.

I remember before we took the leap(s)... it truly did feel like doom and gloom. Everyone we met was quick to share but full of only negatives/warnings.
The tales of horror ran from boredom to beheadings to financial ruin, but somehow none of the people sharing these stories had actually experienced any of them first hand. Always hearsay from a friend, or a friend-of-a-friend, or maybe a best friends cousins uncles neighbors dogsitter.

Regardless, we decided early on that (at least when it came to those looking to talk us out of our dream rather than nudging us forward towards it)... that if it wasn't coming from the person who had actually lived that experience, we quickly gave it the time and respect it deserved - absolutely none!!

We sat with a wise old man from Mexico and watched the sunset over his little puebla as he described this unfortunate habit of our society trying to hold each other back as being like a "bucket of turtles".
https://www.thedangerz.com/blog/society-and-friends

I do hope our charts one day overlap. Would be an honor to share a tea or sundowner with you both!

Yep--Crabs in a bucket. Bucket of turtles...same thing.
Everyone needs everyone to stay the same cause those that escape threaten those who dont.
However...live and let live. Escaping is no more valid/better than not. Each to their own.
Maybe everyone should stay in their own lane and mind their own lives and do what they want...without trying to convince each other their way is best.
I liked your blog. Thanks for posting.

[Saleen411]

Originally Posted by wsmurdoch

You might take a look at the thread "Why Do Cruising Couples Quit" https://www.cruisersforum.com/forums...140709-26.html. Like this thread it is long and circuitous (even without Thomm), but buried in it are real reasons the dream can fail... often disastrously. Although money many times gets the blame, it is seldom the root reason.

.

THAT was a GREAT thread and whoever started it was obviously brilliant!

Oh wait...that was ME!!!!!!

In all seriousness, some VERY insightful responses...learned a lot.

[sailorboy1]

Maybe the problem is someone thinks going out for a daysail or a weekend trip is cruising. Before I went full time on the boat we took regular week long trips on the boat. We called that cruising , but it isn't. It was just a longer weekend. My personal opinion is it takes at least 2 years of full time on the boat cruising to finally learn to slow down enough to get it. Till you reach the point of being able to say “we will just sit here for another week or month” instead of “there is a good enough weather window lets go” you have nt settled into it yet. At the start you want to see new things and always be on the move, but over time most cruisers get over that and settle down.

Currently sitting on a mooring with the sun shining, cool in the upper 60s, wind “howling” at 20 knots, thinking this is relaxing and wondering if I want I to do anything today. At 60 I could instead be at work looking forward to years more of it so I could sit around in a nicer jail cell I call a home.

If someone choses to not retire or cruise that is just fine with me. Get off the cruising forums and threads and get back to work then. Stop taking time from your great working life to post how it is better than cruising. All you are showing is your lost hopes and dreams and your jealousy of those had the courage to follow their cruising life.

[Mook1e]

This is why we intend to at least wait until we've paid off the house. I'm also contemplating semi-retirement the first few years after buying the boat for a number of reasons.
Currently a lot depends on where we go once our youngest graduates this coming year.
If all goes to heck, though, I also have a 2 year buffer in the form of my GI Bill, which would pay our mortgage or boat payment for that time period while I go "back to school" or get some certifications.

Originally Posted by theDangerz

Well... we each have to find our own comfort zone and you're the only one that can find yours, but I'm pretty sure if we're talking on financial security only the overriding feeling from after reading your list is...
What are you waiting for??

Seriously... you have way more in most of the above columns including passive income, retirement plan, backup plan, etc than most people out here we know dong this very comfortably and happily (and WAAAAY MORE than the rest of us).

The only place in your plan I might suggest you run numbers and consider options both ways:


My answer to this may have been different pre-covid as I wished we had more in the bank or that our monthly cashflow wasn't as tight... but when covid hit and the rent checks from home literally stopped and at the same time the ability to consider chartering or other modes of income also stopped at the same time... it certainly got interesting around here.

It also felt like those who didn't own their boat were even more stressed out.
At least we knew that a good provisioning could have us living off the land for a very long time and even if everything went south back home with all our other/backup plans we at least still had the boat(our home) beneath us.

Don't get me wrong, we could have gone back home to the house (except maybe idea of having to evict someone during a pandemic (eck!) and suddenly having to pay the mortgage again (ECK!))... but once you're out here I can almost guarantee that that won't sound like such a good plan when you have to give up the boat and lifestyle to enact a backup plan.

Just a thought - if this year has proved anything, it's that some things just don't go according to plan... and not having to think/worry about losing your boat/home is pretty sweet value add.
You also can't write off the boat payments, as where you can (much of) the house payments back home.

[jtsailjt]

Originally Posted by thomm225

You have a strange way of describing folks that aren't out cruising.



You do realize some cannot run away from their responsibilities and have to get things in order first right?



Then there are those of us that are already cruising locally and have sailed coastal waters along much of the US Coast and on inland lakes and rivers.



Besides that, retiring early to the slow life of cruising is a tough decision because you lose so much variety in life.

If you have responsibilities that force you to continue working past when you’d prefer to, I would never criticize that.

But your last statement regarding losing so much variety in life is ridiculous and certainly no justification for not going cruising. Contrary to your determined misperception of the life of a cruiser, most don’t just sit on their boats wiling away the hours and days any more than other active minded and adventurous people do. Cruisers travel to new places and are exposed to different cultures and learn about their customs, not by reading about them or seeing a documentary on tv, but from first hand interaction with lots of folks they’d have never met if they had stayed on the job in their old home town. At sea, which usually constitutes a small portion of a cruisers time, there are periods of boredom, but there are also interesting experiences and beautiful sights and using both your mind and body to overcome challenges, and finally the satisfaction that you accomplished the voyage safely and on your own. Then there’s all the things you need to learn about nature and boat systems and sailing and procedures to enter new countries. As a land based person you may have a passing interest in weather forecasting as a sort of hobby, but as a cruiser your knowledge, or lack of knowledge about weather has real consequences. Your home may have complex systems such as a modern cruising sailboat usually does, but at sea you can’t call or email a repairman to one fix things when they break so you’d better take an interest in ALL of the mechanical and electrical things aboard your boat. When you travel on vacation you may meet a few locals but usually just superficially as a tourist, and you will spend time in restaurants and in sterile cubicle/hotels but when you travel aboard your boat you interact with locals around the harbor and inevitably get to know several of them and learn about the local area from their perspective, not from a tourist bureau. If you meet a local person whose company you enjoy, you can invite them onto your floating “home” for cocktails or dinner, which is a WAY better connection than taking them out to a restaurant or buying a round at a bar.

I currently live in a neighborhood on land
and though, throughout my life I’ve met lots of interesting and accomplished people, I tend to meet far more when I’m on my boat. Despite having lived in my current neighborhood for 10 years, have never been invited into a neighbors house. I’ve said hello in passing on the street and I’ve done things like removing leaves from a neighbor lady’s lawn because I could see she was struggling (she later put a $100 gift certificate in my mailbox) and I’ve used my snowblower to remove the snow from several neighbors driveways when they had to get to work but the plow truck hadn’t come, and I’ve reassured a lady who wanted to traverse my land to access a scenic hiking path that she was very welcome to do so, and I’ve climbed through an old ladies window when I noticed her standing outside after locking herself out. From what little I know of them, they are all nice people but they have their own hobbies and interests and are too busy to have any interest in my life or me, and vice versa. But when I’m on my boat, my “neighbors” from all all around the harbor frequently invite me to join them for a visit or cocktails or to borrow a tool, etc. and I’ve found so many of them to be very interesting people with all kinds of diverse backgrounds. We’re always either getting invited over for dinner or inviting others to our boat. I recently discovered that my lobsterman friend who takes care of my mooring in the off season has all his grandfathers machine shop tools and knows how to use them and when the dinghy lift on my sailboat needed a new set of delrin rollers in a size that I couldn’t find anywhere online, he was able to make some for me, refusing payment of course. When I travel aboard my boat it’s the same way, I’m constantly meeting interesting people and learning new things and exploring what the local area has to offer. I’ve lived aboard for winters in both Annapolis and the Bahamas and had similar experiences there.

So I have NO idea where you got the silly idea that the life of a cruiser lacks variety or stimulation and all I can say is that if you ever decide to give cruising a real chance, you’re going to be very pleasantly surprised when so many of your misconceptions are proven to be completely unfounded and wrong.

[thomm225]

Originally Posted by jtsailjt

So I have NO idea where you got the silly idea that the life of a cruiser lacks variety or stimulation and all I can say is that if you ever decide to give cruising a real chance, you’re going to be very pleasantly surprised when so many of your misconceptions are proven to be completely unfounded and wrong.

I'm not sure why some of you guys get so upset because I call it like I see it. The cruisers I've seen are as I described them.

Can some of you not handle a differing point of view?

My plan in the 1990's after I arrived on the Gulf Coast was to get a monohull and prep to go cruising since I was newly single after being married 20 years and I wasn't even 40 yet!

But by September 1996, I decided to continue racing instead and I bought a new 1996 Nacra 6.0. No way could I do the slow boat cruising thing at that age, but I didn't stop learning from cruisers.

As a matter of fact, we (the sailors at my apartment) hung out lots of nights at our Apartment's dock drinking beer. (slips were $50.00/month) Usually there was at least one experienced cruiser there that would have a running critique on each and every boat at the dock.

This being the 90's, the cruiser I knew best preferred full keel boats which is probably why I ended up with one.......that and the fact that I have owned the three National Geographic Magazines featuring Robin Lee Grahams circumnavigation since 1985.

So those 10 years of sailing and hanging at the docks with cruiser friends were very informative.

Btw, the hurricane in 2004 totally destroyed that dock and every boat that was in a slip there plus the apartment complex itself. First floor had 8' of water in it during the surge.

So I'm hoping that to start cruising in my late 60's (rather than early 40's) I'll be at the point where it will not be too slow of a lifestyle and maybe I can adapt.......

Attached picture is of the Landing Apartments which was rebuilt and turned into condos after Hurricane Ivan basically destroyed the place in 2004. The pool and the seawall were a part of the rebuild otherwise no way could I have kept my 2 beach cats tied up just above the high water mark. Landscaping was also redone.

Btw, two bedroom apartments back then were $450/month!

[SV-Viento]

This is thread is bordering on legend. So many helpful thoughts often 180 degrees from the previous post and I’m once again reminded that life is filled with more than one correct answer. Hope the OP is finding several to help the process.

[theDangerz]

Originally Posted by thomm225

I'm not sure why some of you guys get so upset because I call it like I see it.

As many, many of us have tried in vain to describe to you - you aren't actually "describing as you see it"... because you've never seen it.

You are describing it as you've "heard from others" who either didn't go or came back because they didn't like it.

While those people could probably add some value here - you regurgitating the negatives you've heard second or third hand from others is not only a pretty skewed view but also one you can't seem to stop repeating each and every time someone with actual relevant experience posts.

Honestly, that's fine (though admittedly boring and frustrating) for those of us that are already out here; but a true disservice to the OP and others trying to gather facts (rather than hearsay) in order to make their own decision.
[QUOTE=thomm225;3286376]

[thomm225]

Originally Posted by theDangerz

As many, many of us have tried in vain to describe to you - you aren't actually "describing as you see it"... because you've never seen it.

Well, it appears it doesn't matter what I say to you it will not get thru. See my posts above for my experiences with cruisers in the Chesapeake Bay, in Tennessee, and with cruisers on the Gulf Coast.

I did mostly sailing/racing while in these areas. I was too young being only in my late 30's- early 50's to hang out at anchor and meet people. I guess I did about 400 buoy races and maybe 50-60 distance between 20-100 miles between 1992-2006. Plus the trip across places like Pensacola Bay with girlfriends to go hangout and drink at beach bars on weekend afternoons.

Before that 1972-1980 it was 5-6 power boats in the Bay and Atlantic Oceans up here.

You are a beginner so maybe these experiences just don't register yet, but don't be sad. You will learn as you go and your sailing skills might also improve if you put the time in.

As for me, I enjoyed my time discussing sailing, cruising and boats with the cruisers I met.

Btw, the boats at our apartment not counting my two Hobie 16's, Nacra 17 and Nacra 6.0 included the following:

Cape Dory 30C (this Cape Dory had the wooden wheel/helm at the stern. Very salty looking!)

C&C 37

Tartan 30

Catalina 27

Bristol 27

S2 9.1

Tayana 37

Soverel 30

And a couple others, but I don't remember because we moved across town closer to the college in 2001.

I was a single parent by then.

[theDangerz]

Originally Posted by thomm225

Well, it appears it doesn't matter what I say to you it will not get thru.
See my posts above for my experiences with cruisers

We aren't the ones not getting it Thomm...you are.

"Experience with cruisers" does not equate to experience cruising.
Those are not YOUR experiences. It's you retelling someone else's experiences based upon hearsay.

There's a reason hearsay doesn't stand up in court - it literally means you weren't there and actually have no idea what happened, what else was going on in those cruisers' lives or what their travels actually looked/felt like.

Reading or hearing others talk about an event is NOT THE SAME as doing.

I don't care how many different types of boats you can list that you've watched cruisers sail in and out of the bay in front of you... repeating the small amount you know about their experiences is not the same as you having cruised on any of them.

At this point I know enough about your history to repeat it here as knowledge... but I think we would both agree that it would probably be a disservice to you and to the thread to paraphrase what I know about you as me "calling it like i see it".
It's simply hearsay... despite the fact that you described it to me (all of us) time and time again yourself.

Either let those cruisers tell their own stories or leave it be.

Originally Posted by thomm225

You are a beginner so maybe these experiences just don't register yet, but don't be sad. You will learn as you go and your sailing skills might also improve if you put the time in.

Oh, Thomm... I feel like I'm chatting with the teenager on the family boat across the bay (like us, also retired early and cruising).

I've openly admitted that I'm only 2+ years into both my sailing and my cruising life. You may throw that out as some off-handed insult, but I take nothing but pride in where I sit, and in being very much aware of exactly what I've achieved in those years as well as the VERY MANY things I have yet to learn and experience as both a sailor and a cruiser.

I'm not delusional about my own experience.
I'm not claiming that the 7years I spent before cruising (driving around to different marinas and chatting over beers trying to learn from those who were actually cruising, the countless nights I spent camping in a space smaller than the tiniest boat we've seen and learning systems/fixing problems along the way) suddenly equates to having been cruising myself all those years.

They don't equate to anything near it, so why would I claim to be more experienced than I am?
It's a fact that you have VASTLY more experience sailing than me (and many full-time cruisers), but we have more experience in CRUISING (of which sailing is a small but VERY valuable part).

As I and others have tried to point out before, this thread isn't about sailing, it's about cruising (and early retirement - both of which you have admitted to having zero experience in (and about the same amount of interest in because you don't like sleeping on boats, have seen all you need to see of the world and think you may get bored).

Thomm, please re-read the last several pages... this isn't just me asking. There are many, many of us trying to find ways to politely suggest to you that your posts here aren't adding value and are actually detracting from the relevance of this thread.

Why not instead spend this time on a sailing-centric thread where I and all others can benefit from your knowledge and first-hand experience??

[thomm225]

Originally Posted by theDangerz

Thomm, please re-read the last several pages...

Yeah, right.

I'm not the one that's retired.

[fxykty]

Originally Posted by thomm225

Yeah, right.



I'm not the one that's retired.

Then just follow the polite suggestion to repeat ad nauseam your sailing and life CV on another thread where your actual lived experience is vaguely related to the thread topic (early retirement and cruising). Please.

[sailorboy1]

We should link this thread to the Joke Thread

[mako]

Originally Posted by ol1970

Just curious if there are any people out there in this camp with wisdom to provide:



- Retired 55 or earlier - meaning zero paid work, only living on investments

- Highly compensated in their profession (arbitrarily picking $250k or higher)

- Enjoyed their career, loved their work/people



So with that, anybody regret going, regret walking away from a gig that you enjoyed. Any marital tips for the cruisers to be?

OP let me address your actual original question instead of the 26 pages of thread drift.

When I was in my late 20’s I walked away from making great money in my business and property development. Bought a big ass boat and went cruising. Early retirement.

Would have done it forever except for two cold realities in life: got low on money; met a girl and got married.

I suppose, in retrospect, the only real reason for leaving the cruising scene was finances. No matter how much 6-figure cash you start out with, a twenty something year old is way too stupid to manage it properly [emoji3]

[jtsailjt]

Originally Posted by thomm225

I'm not sure why some of you guys get so upset because I call it like I see it. The cruisers I've seen are as I described them.

Can some of you not handle a differing point of view?

!

I'm not sure what makes you think I'm upset about you not wanting to go cruising. Most of the people in the world feel that way and I'm not upset with them either. But this thread is about retiring and going cruising and then possibly having or not having regrets. Since you haven't done either of those things, your "different point of view" is about as relevant as the many hundreds of millions of other people in the world who also haven't either retired early OR gone cruising. How could you/they possibly comment usefully on the regrets they have about something they haven't even done? The only difference between all those many millions of non cruising folks and you is that they are going about their lives doing whatever they enjoy doing, but you insist of telling us and retelling us and .....that you aren't interested in and haven't done what this thread is about. Why don't you go post on a thread that has a subject you have some actual firsthand experience with and can provide some useful information about? Please?