I hope this isn't going to upset people or be against the rules, but I used this site a lot last year as my girlfriend and I had gotten it into our heads to go on a big sailing trip. We had never been on the ocean and neither of us had ever touched a sailboat. We lived in Portland at the time. Inside of a year we taught ourselves to sail from books and
videos, bought and fixed up our boat (a 27 ft Newport from 1972), sold everything we owned, and quit our jobs. We then sailed from Portland, Oregon, down the whole west coast and around baja. We are currently anchored in La Paz. We never stayed at marinas, and anchored just about everyplace that is conceivable to do so (and some that aren't). We had the time of our lives and i wanted to thank anyone who helped me when I posted questions on here (I was the guy changing thru-hole valves while the boat was floating and other such crazy stuff). The whole way down we have met tons of people who wished they had stuck with the small boat they used to own. So, if you are planning a trip it's my opinion that you should absolutely strongly consider the smallest thing you can fit in and in my opinion you will have fun inversely proportional to the size of your boat. We have to return to Portland now, so we are selling our boat in La Paz. I would have loved when I was searching this site to find something like this, so i'm including a link to our craigslist ad. I hope that isn't bad manners on a forum. The ad has a bunch of photos and
videos from our trip, though, so I thought people on sailnet might get a kick out of it. Thanks again.
27ft Newport Sailboat in Sea of Cortez
