What are your cruising dreams?

We are all drawn here by a common theme, and that is the love of the water.

We all have different dreams of our cruising future.

Some are happy just getting away, in heir own local area.

Some dream of circumnavigating.

Some want to explore North Americas Great Loop.

This is where you get to share your dreams, and your plans for making them come true.

What are your cruising dreams?

What steps are you taking in your life to prepare to fulfill those dreams?

I'll start this out with mine.

Since I'm on the west coast I dream of starting my cruising down the coast and exploring all that it has to offer. The things that might seem plain to some intrigue me.

Cannery row
The Spanish missions
The Columbia basin
Santa Barbara where I spent time as a child.
Then on to Mexico and all it has to offer.

That's the start, and that's doable.

After that, well, we'll have to see. Possibly Central America, the carribean and finally the great loop.

What am I doing to plan for it????

First, I'm preparing for a modest retirement at 58. I am a working class man of humble means, but being of humble means my needs are not large.

I am fortunate that I do not need to sell my home to finance this dream. Very grateful to say the least.

What are your dreams? Big or small, affluent or modest, they are important here. Please share them.

I was semi-retired until the age of 32, and then it was time to settle down and get a real job. Because of those traveling, college, art school, hiking, and sea kayak expedition days, we don't have a lot of 'stuff'...or a large boat. Luckily for us, our boat suits our current and future cruising dreams perfectly.

We intend to explore as much of Canada's west coast as possible. I'm a large format B&W photographer, and my wife is quickly learning how to photograph wildlife with her digital camera. The plan is to anchor Badger, then explore up creeks, rivers, and scoot around to the exposed beaches on the outer coast with a yet to be purchased, gnarly, bad-assed dinghy.

Once we get a big enough body of work assembled, more miles under the keel, and a better understanding of ourselves and our coast, we'll be ready...to do what, we aren't sure...but the answer will come with time.

Dare to Dream

North America from Alaska around and up the East Coast then down the St. Lawrence to Montreal.

The Great Loop.

The Great Lakes.

The Ohio, Cumberland and Tennessee Rivers.

Bermuda, the Bahamas and the Caribbean.

Crossing the Atlantic.

The Mediterranean.

Northern Europe.

Hawaii

The Pacific Ocean to the Galapagos.

The West Coast of Central and South America to Argentina.

Then I hope one day Piracy is reduced to allow us to feel comfortable on the East Coast of South American, the Suez and Australia and New Zealand. If not at least charter in Australia and New Zealand.

Sounds like a lot but then we have a lifetime.

North American lake and river systems. Our Owens will be capable once we build the trailer. After that the coasts will probably finish off our plans. Trailering will allow us supreme choice in quickly moving the boat between areas not normally accessible to larger boats.

We verified last week that Lake Havasu is far more pleasant in February than many other places. Kind of solidified our resolve to go forward with our plans.

We live in a small town about 20 minutes from where thee boat is on the TN. River. I would like to semi retire in about 5 years keep the house a do some cruising. The plan is to cruise down the Tenn Tom to AL/Fla coast in the fall and then cruise back in the spring every other year are so and do some shorter trips in between .

All cruising should be UNEVENTFUL!

Our cruising dreams; something I've given a lot of thought to, but realize reality may make some adjustments or offer some opportunities.

I retire in Sep 2015. We'll wait until the following February and head from our home in Tampa to the East Coast of FL. From there perhaps the Abacos, admiral wants to do that again. Then up the coast to Jacksonville and the St. Johns river. From there to the Chesapeake Bay. That should take us to the fall where we'll pull out and wait out the winter back home. The next year perhaps continuing north to Marine or the Hudson river to Lake Champlain.

Don't know, just depends on how the first part goes.

French Polynesia.
Circumnavigation.

Our dreams change with age and circumstances. When I was younger, I had no dreams of owning a boat, much less cruising in one for days or weeks at a time.

My dreams are not much by some standards but we have taken a one month cruise, several shorter cruises and we're planning a two month cruise. Some folks cruise just to say they did it, they've been here, there, etc. I think I can find enough cruising within several hundred miles of home to keep me and my wife happy.

WesK said:

Our dreams change with age and circumstances. When I was younger, I had no dreams of owning a boat, much less cruising in one for days or weeks at a time.

My dreams are not much by some standards but we have taken a one month cruise, several shorter cruises and we're planning a two month cruise. Some folks cruise just to say they did it, they've been here, there, etc. I think I can find enough cruising within several hundred miles of home to keep me and my wife happy.

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How true. Even with our moving the boat for stays up and down the East Coast, we find that there are places we like to visit again and again.

This includes anchorages and mooring fields. We love the mooring fields at St Augustine, Annapolis, and Vero Beach. Some anchorages are San Domingo Creek at St Michaels, coves off the Wye River East, Cape Lookout NC, and marinas, moorings, and anchorages around Key West. On the West Coast of FL Cayo Costa and Ding Darling are our favorite anchorages. Ft. Myers Beach mooring field is great, and Boca Grande is our favorite harbor. We have several favorite anchorages in the Bahamas. In fact too many to list.

All that I have mentioned are within easy coastal cruising range. With all the interesting Ports on the Eastern seaboard it can truly provide a lifetime of satisfying cruising.

We love in the PNW and our goals are to explore as much of the Coast of B.C. and Alaska as time allows. This will involve kids, grand kids and friends sharing various legs of the journey.

Our long distance (to me) cruising idea is to head down the Columbia, around the coast of WA, through the Straits of Juan de Fuca then spend several months exploring Puget Sound (north and south), the Gulf Islands, Desolation Sound and maybe up to the Broughtons. I doubt we'd go any further north than that, but I've always said "Never say Never" so I'll leave that open.

We're looking at next year for that and we'll likely leave here in May, spend some time in Portland and the lower Columbia, then head around the coast the first part of June. Our return time is open but we're looking at September. October can be pretty nasty on the coast so we would probably be tucked safely back in the Columbia by then.

We plan to "home" school the kids while doing the Great Loop. I'm ready to leave now, but my wife wants to wait until the kids are out of elementary (so another 4 years).
The cruise plan is leaving from Texas, spend first summer in the Chesapeake area, then loop around from NY to NY (the "DownEast Loo") passing by Quebec and Nova Scotia. And if the family still has some "trill" for cruising, we would like to spend a winter in the Bahamas...

Hope all of your dreams come true !

Wreck diving in the Aleutian Islands is our long term goal, but I have a lot of territory to explore North of Vancouver Island before I get up there.

Cruise up to Alaska and back, out of the Puget Sound.

KS, I am with you. I retire in less than 2 years and in 2016 i will start that dream by returning home to Alaska and the inside passage. Head south for the river to the lower Columbia River or farther south when we feel like it. More than ever I want to return to PWS....

My next big trip is to the Sir Joseph Banks group of islands, which is near Port Lincoln, South Australia. It involves a bit of blue water travel, but is manageable with my present boat with a bit of preparation and a spare two weeks.

The other trip on the agenda is a Murray river cruise. The Murray is the third longest navigable river in the world (after the Nile & the Amazon). The only concern is entering the mouth of the river, which usually has a 6-8 foot swell which makes it challenging. Here's a video of a boat entering the mouth on a good day. Murray Mouth - YouTube

After that - I dream of circumnavigating Australia. This requires retirement, a different boat, and a desire to go. I've got one out of 3.

Alaskan Sea-Duction said:

KS, I am with you. I retire in less than 2 years and in 2016 i will start that dream by returning home to Alaska and the inside passage. Head south for the river to the lower Columbia River or farther south when we feel like it. More than ever I want to return to PWS....

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Well...

I'm digging out the shrimp pots in the next few weeks.

Nothing like fresh caught Alaska shrimp on the barbi

We'd like to repeat our ICW trip to FL; this time going up the west coast . In the mean time, we're still considering going to New England for a month or so. While officially retired, I'm finding that continued working meets some sort of perverted need in my system to feel that I'm being productive. Altho' weird, it brings in diesel money.

My cruising dream is to follow a drug runner headed north that's chucking duffle bags of cash overboard so the federales don't catch him and I'm right behind him with a fishing net scooping up enough to buy whatever I want....

Now THAT's scenery on the ICW in my dreams....

Read this and remember
The Ocean Roar

A small boy heard the ocean roar,
There are secrets on my distant shore,
But beware my child, the ships bell’s wail,
Wait not to long to start to sail.​

​

So quickly come and go the years,
And a young adult stands abeach with fears,
Come on, Come on the ocean cussed,
Time passes on. Oh sail you must.​

​

Now its business in mid-aged prime,
And maybe tomorrow there will be time,
Now is too soon, its raining today,
Gone all gone-years are eaten away.​

​

An old man looks, still feeling the lure,
Yet he’ll suffer the pain, than go for the cure,
The hair is white, the steps with care,
The tide has turned, he is aware.​

​

So all too soon the secrets are buried,
Along with him and all regrets he carried,
And it’s not for the loss of secrets he cried,
But rather because he’d never tried.​

Circumnavigation!
Hawaii in November, then south through the Line Islands to Marquises.
,,,continue heading west.
[God willing]

What a wonderful thread!

We've seen people post about basically cruising in their back yard on one hand, and people that are circumnavigating on the other.

The big thing is, that whatever your dreams are, they are your dreams. We all get this one life, and I hope we all get to live our dreams.

Trawler fourm is part of the preparation phase.
Getting a boat that will allow those dreams, getting it outfitted, and preparing to set forth.

bring on retirement!

I'm planning on selling my house at retirement (7 years) and buying a trawler (or troller) then explore the inside passage extensively. Maybe even a trip down to Mexico? Until then, I still get to have fun on my little Bayliner 2452.

PS-had something similar to that happen years ago. We lived on the Shallotte River, about 1/2 mile inland from the ICW at Shallotte Point, NC. This was in the early 80's. At that time, shrimpers were getting paid around $25K to bring in a load of pot from an offshore ship to be offloaded. One night we were sitting on our deck over our dock and suddenly two choppers came out of nowhere with super bright lights. We could see two Whalers chasing several small boats. Turns out is was a DEA bust on the other side of the river. the tide was coming in and 52 bales of pot washed up in front of out house in about an hour! 50 Lb bales! About three minutes later, one of the Whalers came flying across with 4 DEA guys, no humor in those guys at all. They had to borrow a truck from my neighbor to get the pot back over to the other side. Unfortunately, they got there before we could snatch a bale!

The funny part was that about 3 months later, my neighbor pulled up a big brick of hashish in his shrimp net!

That bust led in part to our County Sheriff being a guest of the Feds for 6 years.

As to the cruising thing, we have about 31/2 more years to spend cruising the PNW while our daughter finishes high school. Once she is off to college, we will make our way down the West coast, through the canal to the Caribbean and the East Coast. Our eventual goal is to do an Atlantic crossing and spend a year or two in Europe and the Med. But as they say, "Best laid plans ...." and all that. We may not make it any further than Port Townsend!

Just low wind and waves

psneeld said:

My cruising dream is to follow a drug runner headed north that's chucking duffle bags of cash overboard so the federales don't catch him and I'm right behind him with a fishing net scooping up enough to buy whatever I want....

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That could only come from a CG guy. Can I be your second mate, we'll split 40/60?

Our eventual goal is to do an Atlantic crossing and spend a year or two in Europe and the Med.

Which sailboat are you looking for ?

I have a few cruising dreams (I'm a 'contingency planner' type that usually has plans A-Z in the hopper)...

I dream about pulling into the marina in Dingle, Ireland fresh from an Atlantic crossing and walking across the street into a pub to have a fresh pint of Guinness. (Too specific? I realize I Probably wouldn't have to venture that far north to achieve the same effect!). Once that pint is done and I've got some pics of my boat I front of the cliffs of Moher, we would high tail it for warm weather and cheap beer on the coast of Turkey!

I dream about taking my girls (Admiral, 3yr old, 3wk old) on a long term ICW adventure (when the little ones are a little less little of course)... Summers waaay up north (Maine or Great Lakes) and winters waaay down south (Bahamas or Central America).

For you left coasters, I also dream about winters in Baja or Costa Rica and summers in the San Juans or Inside Passage. I have a variation on this one where I've hung up my executive hat to teach school in the Seattle area so we could liveaboard year round and spend summers on the Inside Passage.

And who doesn't have a South Pacific dream? I could go on and on (and I have a different boat picked out for each dream).

What am I doing about it? Well I am squarely in the research phase. Next phase is some charter vacations to get the Admiral on board. The goal is to be able to cast off sooner rather than later (shooting for mid 50s) but making sure I can take care of my family. I have 5 years left of dodging RIFs and cuts in the Air National Guard and about 10-15 left in corporate America (I'm in my late 30s). Now before you say I'm putting it off too far (which I couldn't disagree with) also know as an engineer, program manager, and military planner..... There's a spreadsheet. I build a spreadsheet for everything - but this one is a plan (to include many many different off ramps and contingencies - we call them branch and sequel plans in the military) so that all these moving parts are laid out to analyze. It's super nerdy!

Forgot to mention.... Another great thread KS! (This was broken up into paragraphs when I typed it, I swear!)