A question for the young active passagemakers

Hello,
As you travel the worlds oceans, canals or great lakes, what do you do that keeps you a productive retiree? I would like to retire young, yet do not want to have a life of constant vacation once I shove off. Can you tell me how you keep yourself busy aboard -beyond boat maintenance? Is this not the lifestyle for an individual who's 'driven' and 'goal oriented'?
Thanks,
Dubnuh

sure sounds like only YOU know that answer...the missing piece of the puzzle is understand what living aboard and/or cruising really is.


depending on the boat...heavily cruising it can almost be a full time job in itself.


throw in day to day living like laundry, especially if not aboard, can really add up the time.


plus any water related hobbies and believe me...weeks aren't long enough.

I believe the screen name of the gentleman is BoatGM. He is quite unassuming but is involved in using his custom built power tri-miran as a cargo delivery vessel for medical missionaries in remote islands of the Philippines. He is frequently very involved with disaster relief operations owing to his unique familiarity with locals.

CPseudonym said:

I believe the screen name of the gentleman is BoatGM. He is quite unassuming but is involved in using his custom built power tri-miran as a cargo delivery vessel for medical missionaries in remote islands of the Philippines. He is frequently very involved with disaster relief operations owing to his unique familiarity with locals.

Click to expand...

have worked I charitable organizations...can turn more into work than recreation.

My point being...how driven is driven and what can satisfy it? Only he can answer that and fill in the blank with his idea of cruising. Then add in his desires of recreation.

Believe me....I may not be driven...but it was hard to overcome the adrenaline rush often experienced with flying USCG helos...I still crave difficult salvages and tows even though assistance towing was a baby step to full retirement.

This is my last year towing...not sure what I can do that fits my retiring lifestyle but if I don't satisfy both the "do the difficult with nothing" state of mind and the adrenal gland....I too am wary of full retirement.

psneeld said:

sure sounds like only YOU know that answer...the missing piece of the puzzle is understand what living aboard and/or cruising really is.

depending on the boat...heavily cruising it can almost be a full time job in itself.

throw in day to day living like laundry, especially if not aboard, can really add up the time.

plus any water related hobbies and believe me...weeks aren't long enough.

Click to expand...

EXACTLY

I'm constantly amazed how little I get done every week, month, season.

At least traveling like we are, my only vacation is when I'm back in nyc.

Your time is filled with the time you have.

Dubnuh said:

Hello,
I would like to retire young, yet do not want to have a life of constant vacation once I shove off. Can you tell me how you keep yourself busy aboard -beyond boat maintenance? Is this not the lifestyle for an individual who's 'driven' and 'goal oriented'?
Thanks,
Dubnuh

Click to expand...

We cruise four to six months a year, living at anchor. Exhaustion is a better description than bored. Boat maintenance, sight seeing, daily living chores and socializing leave little time for rest. We are not on vacation on our boat, it is our life and it is a very busy one. There are days when I look back fondly at my work years when I could rest at the office.

We are beginning year 5 of living aboard. I'm still waiting for the day that I have nothing to do.

I am on my 2nd year of living aboard 5 months of the year

I work from home or my boat after working in the boat office I work on the boat or take it for a sunset cruise

If I have to travel I am normally am near a major airport

A day on the boat always leaves my muscles slightly sore, my knuckles scraped, a t-shirt ripped trying to squeeze into the engine bay...in other words, a day on the boat is far more active than anything I do at the office.

Wife the twins (18) and I started full timing in 2004. With in the next 2 years the wife and I are going to move on to dry land. We all keep talking about it and will go back to house hunting once we get back on the east coast.

I'm still a 30% owner of a large technology company. I spend about 25 hours a week dealing with it.
My twins are doing online collage and spending around 50 hours a week with it.
The wife is working with a group for some non profit organization.

We still love a lot of the times on the boat, but there are plenty of times we just get board. There's about 5 places we love to drop our hook and hang out on the boat for 15 to 30 days at a time.

I'm about 5 years from retirement and have begun pondering Life after job on a more frequent basis.

Our plan is to photograph the lesser traveled sections of BC's north and central coast, spending a fair bit of time ashore hiking beaches, forests, creeks, and mountains. Also planning on exploring the outer coast by dinghy and/or kayak.

My wife takes digital images...I use mainly film and print in the darkroom, so we'll be coming home on a regular basis. Hopefully the photo's will pay for themselves (plus a little bit) but the main reason will be to educate people how amazingly beautiful our coast is. You have to know something to love it. We'll also share our images with organizations fighting to keep BC's north and central coast as pristine as possible while impacts from the modern world keep expanding.

Will never run out of places to visit, especially if you want to see them during several seasons. Click link below...everything north of Vancouver Island and south of Alaska is our playground

https://www.google.ca/maps/@54.049366,-129.7489583,9z

Words of Retirement Wisdom;

**Time is precious...waste it wisely**

**Today only happens once**

One thing I believe is that we all need hobbies. If you're living on a boat, then it can't be your hobby. So you still need to find things you love to do. For us there are so many that we never get bored.

Did anyone else notice the paradox here. When I clicked on this thread, the next thread under was, "Who gets the boat". We definitely have a wide variety of boaters on this site. Welcome, young folks.