Quote:
Originally Posted by CaptainFredGreenfield
That's my advice, on my blog. I'm only advertising it in my sig because I want to give my advice on what to buy. You disagree.
I mean its amazing, nobody has said my expenses were wrong or that it doesn't cost a lot to own a sailboat and yet a few have such a negative reaction to telling dreamers that information exactly? You'd rather just let those people walk into the propeller blade so that someone can pick up a neglected boat out of a distress sale? Thats just incredible. Thats exactly why I started my blog, hopefully people don't walk into the propellor, they are WARNED THAT THEY COULD, and they take a proper course of action, thats all. Sorry you disagree that I should do that. |
No one is actually disputing your expenses. They are "what they are". They are for all of us. I'm a NEW sailor, haven't even put the boat in the water yet. I've already spent (somewhat less than) 10K. My wife and I intially laid out a cost of around 20K for everything from training to buying a first boat.
We're 50% below that and I don't expect any more major expenses until I go to get a bigger boat.
We're working out a budget for that now... and do not expect to actually purchase a boat for at LEAST a year, perhaps three more. So, it's kind of up in the air at the moment. Things could change.
MY issue with your post was the way you directed your message to "All you dreamers".....
THAT's where I have the problem.
Life is complex enough in this day and age for us all, Internet, Satellite TV, GPSes, text messaging, cars with computers that won't start when the battery voltage.
My wife and I are really several years from "retirement". Our "dream" was discussed once or twice some thirty years ago - then life happened, children, major medical issues with some of the kids forcing year long hospital stays, the death of a child, moving constantly for 20 years, finally settling one place, about as freakin' far in the US as you can get from an ocean.
The dream was there in both our heads, but we never really again discussed going sailing, traveling the world or getting out of Colorado. I was resigned to the fact I'd be settling down in "Little House on the Prairie" where my kids and grand kids could come visit me, ride a horse or milk a cow, or shoot some guns, bows and arrows or simply have a good glass of home brew beer or mead.
Then, something clicked one day. My wife and I were discussing that "retirement" and when I asked her what she wanted to do, she said, "I'm not sure what I want to do, but I'll tell you what I DON'T want to do... that's just quit. Stop doing things. I want to travel. "
I asked her, "How would you like to sail?"
She said, "Absolutely. Yes. Let's do that."
There was a bit more discussion of course, about things like RVs and traveling the country and so on, but we both knew deep down that our love for the Caribbean would win out. So it was decided.
The dream, Sir, is becoming real for us, day by day. It's still a few years away, and I've got plenty of work to do - but I've not been sailing for sixty years like you - it's not something which I have "grown tired" or doing yet, and certainly it isn't something with which we've become jaded seeing others let their boats rot.
I've seen enough nonsense and crap, death and destruction in my life to last several lifetimes - and I want to do something *I* want to do, not "work for the government" or "be on call". I don't give a damned how much I end up spending and I don't really want someone to kick me in the gonads and tell me to "quit dreaming".
That's my gripe with you. And it's one I'll stand here and tell EVERYONE that you're wrong about.
You're wrong.
As others have already said in different ways, it's not the cost of doing something that you enjoy, rather it is the priceless memories and experiences you gain that make you a better person for what you're doing.
With that I'll tell you we'd decided on a name for the boat - from a Buffet song - and I'm certainly not (as most know) an Obama fan with his "Change" crap he pushed on the public... but the "Winds of Change" is the name of the boat and that's what it'll remain.
Rick
