Hello. First an introduction. I'm based in BC and have been coastal cruising for yikes, 25 years. We've owned a 20 year old Catalina 34 for a year and prior to that had a 40 year old English bilge keeler. There is me, my wife, and 2 boys aged 9 and 12, and of course the waterdog, Scupper.
We are contemplating pulling the plug, selling the house, cars, boat, etc and going cruising in warmer climates for an indefinite period of time. So the next boat will need to be a comfortable bluewater voyager. There is plenty of guidance here on what sort of boat to get, but I'm looking for feedback on overall approach.
Conventional wisdom says I should buy the boat (something 20 ish years old would fit the budget) and spend the next few years fitting it out appropriately for offshore work before loading the family aboard, heading out Juan de Fuca and hanging a left for Mexico. I have a couple of problems with this approach 1) boats here tend to be very expensive and there is a limited selection of decent world cruising types & 2) why make the family's first foreign cruising experience a run down the coast of Oregon with heavy fog and/or 3 gales before we hit San Francisco?
The alternative is to buy a boat, say a reasonably equipped Mason 43 or Fast Passage 39, in say BVI or Mexico. Something with a sound hull,
rig, and engine and move aboard and go cruising. If we're going to spend our days rebedding stanchions why not do it in a nice warm anchorage with snorkel trips in afternoon?
I firmly believe that fixing/upgrading the boat is a never ending experience and I enjoy it immensely. I'm not sure that I believe it has to be done all at once and that I need to do a $100k refit on a 20-25 year old boat to get it ready to go. Seems to me there are plenty of boats that people have already invested a lot of money in refitting and that buying a sound boat "in paradise" is a viable option.
What are the downsides of buying the boat in a destination cruising area? Am I going to experience major frustration in getting parts and wish that I'd bought something in Southern California or Florida instead?