Time for an adventure!

Thank you everyone for your wonderful advice, I truly can't wait for the exciting times ahead. Definitely going to look into some refrigeration classes because it sounds like a great skill to know for a sailor for personal use and personal gain.

Anybody have any great places that I CAN'T miss along my voyage? Anything off the beaten path is where I hope to spend most of my time. Tourist traps and resort towns need not apply! Tiny Island chains that are remote and exotic with secluded bays and private beaches where I can go set up a hammock and read all day long and not see another human in sight is my ideal 'fantasy'. I honestly get butterflies in my stomach just thinking about what lies. I don't really want to plan too much of the voyage out, maybe just a rough outline of where I want to go because I want to be able to just sail anywhere on a whim.

Again, thank you guys for your wonderful advice and encouraging words!

 

A very long time cruiser, with many more sea miles than I will ever have, said the Solomon Islands were his version of paradise, but that was years ago and things have probably changed.
I liked the Marquesas a lot.

 

Great Idea about the refer mechanic.Bataan I like your advise.Makes total sense to me.The Magazines tell me I need a 46 foot automatic furling reefing winching radar reflecting weather faxing deisel powered forward facing sonar bow thrusting quadraphonic hyper-space cutter, with a thermo nuclear water maker at a BARE minimum before I can even think about sailing offshore.By the time I unpack all the manuals Ill be 107.reminds me of a saying "it doesnt have to make sense,just a long as it makes money, This is America!"

 

Hi Bataan,
The remote islands of SE & NE PNG, and the Solomon Islands have not changed much, and the Islands of Vanuatu are also still similarly attractive, but be a "Canadian", or something? as China is flavour of the month in Melanesia...

 

Las Aves Archipelago

You can only get there by boat and it is uninhabited. My favorite place in all of the carribean.

 

Isn't that where Barry Gifford dived on an entire wrecked fleet of Pirate and Privateer ships?

 

Don't forget the hyper-drive mainsail furling bug scraper and the wi-fi enabled vibrating neon running lights like the ones on this craft.
I'm sure these sailors have all of the above that you mentioned and more.
Boats can be pretty simple, and still work just fine.

 

MrTifful , Do it now . There are a lot of boats to be had cheap right now , I would not be surprised if someone would give you one . Keep it simple.

Good luck .
F

 

Go cruising now. It is later than you think.

 

If I were your age and in your neck of the woods I would go for a "Flicka"
find one cheap - live on it - fix it

http://www.flicka20.com/Data/Flicka-Passages.aspx

when you sit and study the "Flicka" histrory you will be blown away

 

Dammit guys, you have messed with my head. I am waaaaay too old to contemplate this sort of thing. Reading these threads makes me wonder whether I have wasted a perfectly good life in quest of landlocked happiness. I could have been messing about in the Marquesas and a thousand other places. Someone here, in a fit of great advice, said; Do it now! That has to be right because if you hang around too long you might fall in love, get put in jail, or find some other reason to alter your destiny.

 

In Mexico we saw 3 people cruising in a folkboat and doing well, if quite crowded and deeply loaded. Around La Paz was a young guy and girl on a tiny Wharram cat without a cabin living in their backpacking tent between the hulls and we saw them in some far-flung Mexican gulf and mainland anchorages.
More remote areas with less re-supply would require a little larger boat.
These are a few of many varied cruisers you meet when you really start getting out there. The basic thing is have a "just big enough" boat that has small hatches, strong small windows, enough freeboard and a sensible enough shape to not have bad habits, a very strong simple rig, plenty of anchors and long rodes, also several backup overkill pumping systems and I don't mean a scared man with a bucket.
These all come under rule #1, don't be stupid. Going to sea in a small craft is not necessarily stupid, but to do it unprepared for the worst is.
Peace of mind in this world is a very stout hull that can stand you making a mistake with a stone breakwater and survive if lucky, plus a rudder/steering system so simple and robust that will not fail, ever. This usually means stay away from spade rudder and view any detached rudder with suspicion. And pedestal wheel steering gizmos with an underdeck quadrant are notorious for fouling/stretching/jamming their wires at bad times.
And a rig that you can reef singlehandedly going downwind in a rising gale at 2 am when desperately seasick is a real help.
If you can stay afloat, steer, set some sail and maneuver no matter what, pump and pump some more, and anchor (and lose several anchors and still have backup) you are most of the way to your goal.
It's really very simple and we as humans have been doing it a very very very etc long time.
So what's stopping you?

 

Nice old English Nobby for sale in NW WA state. Rebuilt by experts and ready for another 100 years. Never had an engine. Was built for fisherman's races with original outside ballast and is roomy, fast, seaworthy and beautiful.

 

Bernard Moitessier wrote in one of books that the hardest part of the whole endeavor for alot of people is actually untying the dock lines and leaving.Some people get the boat, all the supplies,read all the books and when it comes time to go find an excuse to fix something or replace something, repaint something and never actually go.They are in a constant state of 'preparing'.I knew a guy here who wanted to sail around the world.He asked me what kind of boat to get.I asked him if he really really really liked sailing,especially the cold wet and scary kind?,He never really answered that.He got a 30 foot modified H28 type ketch.It was all teak,An older Cheoy Lee I think.Told everybody he was off to live his dream,gave up his work, sold his car,cut the ties.He left San Francisco with a big farewell and went as far as Half Moon Bay where he promptly sold the boat.I asked him what happend he said sailing was nothing like he thought it would be, ie; He was cold,wet,and scared.

 

I'm convinced committed sailors (and I mean that in the best possible way) have a form of amnesia where we instantly dump from our memories the cold, wet and scary parts of sailing and only remember the good bits.

I'm sure if I actually looked at the days when I went out and got hurled around violently on the boat whilst feeling like I wanted to empty my guts out of my mouth they would outweigh the great days where everything went to plan but my brain just doesnt register the bad bits as long as I survive I'm ready to jump onto another boat and head out again.