What Happens to all the Hasbeens?

[SV THIRD DAY]

With all the talk and focus on the Wannabes, how about talking a little about what happens to all the Hasbeens?

I bring this topic up because cruisers plan and plan and plan for the ultimate dream cast off but then like all Cruise Dreams eventually do one day it ends. It was much easier mentally for us to cast off cruising than it was to come back, even if we are still living aboard. All the armchair advice is about casting off with very little said about going back! There is a general feeling and view we saw that no matter how long you stayed out or how far you went you somehow "failed at the dream" when the cruise was over and very few people want to open up about the process of ending a cruise with a plan. We were so "afraid" to come back that we actually extended our cruise for a year to buy some more time to figure out the Re-entey Plan. With less than a week before our Baja Bash back from Mexico to California we pushed the Panic button and stayed out another year. Casting off on the Cruise for us it turns out was the Easy part....ending the Cruise was much harder and there was no real Ra-ra you can make it type of support.

There are no cruise end cast off parties.
There are no cruise end celebrations.
You just drop out of the cruising community that you loved one day and your VHF doesnt call out all the time for an impromptu dinner and drink get together.

To speak honestly for myself one of the reasons I like my "job" and keep active in lots of cruising forums and groups is to stay connected to the cruising community. Its hard to explain what the community is and why its so great to someone who hasn't yet experiences it, but those that have I'm sure understand the withdrawal symptoms when you leave it.

I've kept in contact with many of the cruisers we cruised with, some are still out there going and some (the majority) have sold their boat and went onto something new. Sure they may one day again get a new boat and head back out, but the norm isn't a 10yr retirement cruise, I'm guessing it is a 2-3yr cruise window with much more life to live post cruise.

So come on you Hasbeens...what are you doing now? What happened to all of you?

[El Pinguino]

I did read once that the fair dinkum old cruisers end up in one of 3 places... Cygnet, Tasmania, Bay of Islands,NZ, and Vancouver.

They are the "elephants' graveyards" of the cruising world.....

[donradcliffe]

The natural progression is cruiser, motorhome, rest home. We are currently motoring around Australia in a campervan, visiting other hasbeens.

[Evenstar]

Originally Posted by El Pinguino

I did read once that the fair dinkum old cruisers end up in one of 3 places... Cygnet, Tasmania, Bay of Islands,NZ, and Vancouver.

They are the "elephants' graveyards" of the cruising world.....

I can totally see swallowing the anchor here in NZ, if you had to pick a place.

[SV THIRD DAY]

Originally Posted by Evenstar

I can totally see swallowing the anchor here in NZ, if you had to pick a place.

Heck I haven't even been there and so can I...

[donradcliffe]

NZ is cold and wet everywhere, all the time. With OZ you have your choice of climates, like California.

[monte]

Isn't Auckland about the same latitude at Sydney? I would have thought the weather there would be pretty warm most of the year and further south similar to vico and tassie. Bay of islands looks good/great.
Our plan is to travel around oz for a while, so. So much to see, it's gonna take years!

[JPA Cate]

Originally Posted by El Pinguino

I did read once that the fair dinkum old cruisers end up in one of 3 places... Cygnet, Tasmania, Bay of Islands,NZ, and Vancouver.

They are the "elephants' graveyards" of the cruising world.....

Nahh, El Ping, not Cygnet (though we could end up there ourselves), it is Kettering where the old elephants go to swallow the anchor. There are already several retired cruisers with shoreside properties there and more likely coming. The Port Huon/Geevseton area is getting a few, too.

If only the winters there were warmer and shorter...

Jim, using Ann's computer.

[a64pilot]

I'm not a hasbeen, still a wannabe

But we have a plan. I intend to sell our house and property and buy a couple of condos in the Panhandle of Fl. for rental property. When the day comes and cruising has to end we intend to move into one of the condos.

I hope that one day when sailing and open water becomes too much that we will get a trawler and maybe the great loop? But I want to see the Pacific first, that's my dream, the South Pacific

[Evenstar]

Originally Posted by donradcliffe

NZ is cold and wet everywhere, all the time. With OZ you have your choice of climates, like California.

EVERYTHING in OZ is trying to kill you, all the time. But I've not sailed there yet so I can't comment much on the weather.

NZ weather has been lovely the whole time we've been here. Very similar to the mid-Atlantic regions in the US, neither too hot or too cold.

Of course we're going to have to get out of Dodge soon...

[Spleen]

Originally Posted by a64pilot

I'm not a hasbeen, still a wannabe

But we have a plan. I intend to sell our house and property and buy a couple of condos in the Panhandle of Fl. for rental property. When the day comes and cruising has to end we intend to move into one of the condos.

I hope that one day when sailing and open water becomes too much that we will get a trawler and maybe the great loop? But I want to see the Pacific first, that's my dream, the South Pacific

I want a trawler too! For us, it would be a 2 year stint probably on the ICW, but in the distant future.

[barnakiel]

Originally Posted by monte

Isn't Auckland about the same latitude at Sydney? I would have thought the weather there would be pretty warm most of the year and further south similar to vico and tassie. Bay of islands looks good/great.
Our plan is to travel around oz for a while, so. So much to see, it's gonna take years!

NZ is an island, AUS is a continent.

Look at all the landmass to the E and S of Sydney then remember what landmasses do to ocean air masses.

I can't tell you for Sydney but Auck is horribly wet and cold in the winter! No way I am going to retire there!

Have been. ;-)

b.

[monte]

Haha yes Nick. Coming from the south coast of Oz on the great ocean road, I know the fronts we have coming off bass straight are a lot cooler and wetter than just 200km North on the East coast around merrimbula because the air has travelled over the land before it gets there. But I don't mind the Victorian climate at all. Strange that Perth has a pretty awesome climate as well. Maybe it's a bit further North.

[oldragbaggers]

Definitely not hasbeens yet, but..... The way we hope for it to play out is to sail until the rigors of sailing and living at an angle underway get to be too much for us, then transition to a trawler and the Great Loop. The end stage will be a nice condo in Florida. There will always be a land camper as well. We love to camp now and have no intentions of giving it up even after we start cruising. We have set no time frames on any of the stages. We figure we'll know when it's time. I guess we need to plan some kind of transitional party at each stage.

[CSY Man]

Guess I am a Has Been.
Liveaboards and part time cruiser 30 years ago.
Bought another boat in 1998 and sold it recently.
Need to retire and do it again, full-time this time...