amount of time you have spent on your boat for a single outing. My wife and I spent 7 days two years ago sailing around the Channel Islands off the coast of Oxnard, California.
With only a 27 footer it was remarkably comfortable for the two of us. It was so relaxing dropping a hook when and where we felt like. If anyone has been there our favorite anchorage is Choaches Preitos.(Black Pigs) We are thinking of Mexico next year taking about two weeks or so. Can't wait.
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This morning it looked so nice out I thought I'd leave it out.
S/V "Tina Marie" Cal 2-27
Charleston-Florida(offshore)-Keys,back to Miama-bimini-Port Lucaya-West end-Walkers-DblBreasted-Monjack-Greenturtle=5weeks
Frank,
That's great over a month. My wife and I would love to travel that long just can't get away from the ball and chain(Work) for that long. As I said in an earlier post we are thinking about sailing to Mexico this summer take about two weeks. L.A. to San Diego to Ensenada and back.
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This morning it looked so nice out I thought I'd leave it out.
S/V "Tina Marie" Cal 2-27 (Featured Boat Lats&Atts Oct. 05)
Only problem is it is HIGHLY ADDICTIVE !!!....ya don't want to quit !! Once you are away for over a week..ya kinda get 'unplugged' from the normal work-social BS and ya don't really want to face it again.Biggest stress is windy nights at anchor. Only advice...what ever anchor ya think would work...double it !! Ya won't be sorry when you're trying to sleep somewhere with out a lot of room and its blowing 25knts
7 months on The Edge in 2003. Florida and Bahamas. Loved it but got very lonely in Bahamas watching the blue skies, seas and white sand :(.
Frank I know what ya mean about the anchor. Our first outing on this boat to Santa Cruz island and the anchor dragged that night. The next day I was at Worst Marine getting a new CLAW anchor sized for a 30 footer and have not had a problem since. It even held one night when the swells came in rocked the boat so much I couldn't sleep.
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This morning it looked so nice out I thought I'd leave it out.
S/V "Tina Marie" Cal 2-27
the most time on a single outing.. hmmmm...... lessee.. 41 days from ouahu to ventura.about 3500 miles. non stop,except for ten days all together of no wind.if you consider this it was really 3 months...I left ventura in may 1985,and returned in september.6000 miles round trip,and thats completely offshore,no stoppin' off for a 'burger,I mean deep sea trans oceanic voyaging..... with two stops....hilo and ouahu.done on a 1964 26 foot pearson ariel.I did it again and again...but like the song goes...".its never as good as the first time."just more of the same thing
Geeze - just 48 hours - It only takes an hour to sail across the lake at 5knots so after that its a beach party or racing with the other 3 or 4 boats here >:( Oh well - I think the trip I'm going on in April will fix that - Look Out Tahiti!!
Capt Teach,
Will you be sailing the Toumatoes (formerly known as the Dangerous Isles) in French Polyneasia?
Before the divorce or after ? Just teasing. 3 weeks in the San Juan Islands. Several times.
Sailing? I think the longest has been just over 3 weeks. The Thousand Islands are a beautiful summer cruising ground that we try to get to every year.
Two more years and I'm planning on 6 months in the Caribbean - so I love reading segments on folks that have done it on small boats.
Cheers!
John
So far - our first cruise in our 'new to us' boat has been 5 days, 2 of which the weather was "questionable," over Labor Day Weekeknd 2005. Three people, 2 new to cruising, "new to us' boat first time in water for 3 years, bad weather, a long distance (for us) and no refrigeration. (http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b289/Kailyst/Misc%20Pics/Smilie-Dazed.gif)
WHAT A BLAST!!!!!! It was the best time that I have had in years!! When can we do it again?? (http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b289/Kailyst/Misc%20Pics/BouncySmiley.gif)
Next season, we want to try for a week or two solid. Winter is the time for planning.
Hopefully, next weekend we will have some "Boat Time" (http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b289/Kailyst/Misc%20Pics/Smilie-Pile.gif)
Quote from: The Edge on December 31, 2005, 09:55:50 AM
Capt Teach,
Will you be sailing the Toumatoes (formerly known as the Dangerous Isles) in French Polyneasia?
I'm not real sure of the stops on this trip - It's been added to my schedule since Thanksgiving and I'm not in charge on this one. What I do know is that we are taking a Polynesian Voyaging Canoe (read big traditional catamaran) to a guy in Tahiti that teaches the OLD ways of navigation as a gift for his school. This guy teaches navigation by wind and wave patterns and following the constelations - your only instrument is knowing which one comes up next and you find them by holding your arm at length and 'giving shaka' (you know that 'hang loose' thing the Hawaiians do) I REALLY can not wait - I'm trying to get all sorts of projects finished and out of my shop not to mention things at the house
If you don't count the couple of years I lived aboard my 35 foot trimaran, then Laura and I have spent 14 days aboard our previous 21 footer, plus our 6 week cruise aboard Tehani this past spring- Port Lavaca, Tx to Fl Walton Fl and return.
There are longer trips in the planning stages.
We usually don't go to our Flicka unless we can stay for a week. When we do, we stay right on the boat the whole time, either in the marina or out on the lake (KY Lake) someplace. Unfortunately, we have yet to be able to stay more than 10 days or so, so ten days is the longest.
But we take what we can get. I'll get better .....
Rik
Although it's not really an outing, I guess, I have been aboard since the beginning of April of '05. :D
Capt'n
Did you say you are a liveaboard? Just curious my wife and I are considering it although we would need a bigger boat.
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This morning it looked so nice out I thought I'd leave it out.
S/V "Tina Marie" Cal 2-27
I did about 6 months straight... Started in Pascagoula MS, through the Okeechobee, down to Miami, over to the Bahamas, and back to Miami...
It took a while because we had to stop and repower in St. Pete (over a month), wait for a weather window in Miami (5 weeks), work in Bimini (my captain did marketing consulting for the Bimini Sands Marina), etc...
All of it on the hook, only way to go! CHEAP living :)
A question here to all who have replied with long time on your boat. Are you (1) retired? (2) wealthy? (3) unemployed? (4) work for the government?. Where can you get that much time free. I am busy with three grown kids, one in college, two grandkids in Ohio, one more on the way, my wife runs her own business , I help run a local chain of hardware stores, and oh; two dogs. I and my wife need our revenue just to crack the monthly nut. Soo, I am curious.
I am not retired but I can give up work and find it at st.elsewheres,and have done so wherever I go.
Currently self employed. Wife is self employed also. When I did my several years full time cruising, I just simply quit work, sold the cars and junked every thing else, and went. When I returned I opened a business. I now draw soc sec though, which helps immensely :D
Now we work hard until we can go, then shut down and go for however long we feel like. At the moment we are in a working hard stage. Not sailing as much as we'd like. But this spring we'll be out again.
The real secret to going cruising is to reduce what you have, and what you need. If you REALLY want to go, sell the big house and buy a tiny one. Sell the new cars and drive old ones- and keep driving them til they quit- then fix 'em. Get a small boat that doesn't cost a bunch to keep up or pay for. In other words, reduce that nut you have to crack. Reduce it WAY down.
'It's a trade off- you swap one thing for another, and many who SAY they'd like to cruise, really don''t want to give up what they must in order to do so. Unless you happen to be rich, which most aren't:) It's not easy for most people to drop out of the "buy bigger, own more" mindset of our modern society though. We are fed that our entire lives and it's very very hard to disconnect. But it can be done, ya just gotta want it badly enough.
All this presumes good health you understand- if there are medical problems, then things are different.
I'm currently reading "Sailing Small" which I noticed Iceman recommended in the Book Forum. One of the writers made the point that sailing on a small boat can really grow on you. I've had three summers on Dream Weaver and each year I've wanted to do more. My life style limits my possible trips to two or three weeks for now but I fantasize about retirement and circumnavigating Long Island or aimlessly searching all the harbors in Narragansett Bay. And who knows beyond that.
Dick
Dave - Yes, I liveaboard, and I LOVE it. :) The quarters are small, relatively, but that just means I have less "stuff" in my life. Less stuff = More freedom, to me. I've lived out of sea kayaks for weeks at a time, so really this boat is almost palatial, especially considering I don't have to set it up every night, and completely unpack and repack it at the beginning and end of every day. :D
Sailorman - I just have a "small house, that floats", and it didn't cost much at all compared to one that doesn't. ;D Somewhere on this forum, Flicka Rik made a post about how the "American Dream" has become the "American Financial Trap", and that's something I have assiduously avoided. I drive an old car (a '91), buy good clothes at discount/closeout prices (mail order, or sales), and just don't have a need for so many "things" that most people think they "need" (like TV's), so my "monthly nut" is a very small one. BUT - I'm rich (not to be confused with "wealthy" ;) ). Then again, I don't have kids - just a couple o' scurvy CrewDogs, and that's a huge financial difference.
I was reading another sailing board today where a 'net friend is spending $12,000 per foot for his new boat (outfitted). I could live for several years off of 5 feet of his boat. :D
CJ is making some good points. I was lucky to have been influenced by the Pardeys and Don Casey early on in my boat buying and "edumacation". Eric/Starcrest is on to something as well. In fact, I met a transient Saturday who picked up a Isabel-refugee Catalina 25 in Va. and deal-hunting, he got her ready to go for about $2K. Then he saved up a months salary, and just took off. He started in Portsmouth, and is headed South, willing to stop and replenish the kitty wherever and whenever. He has the website address here, I imagine we'll hear from him once he gets down Florida way.