NEWbie from Minnesota

[ashbreanna13]

Hi!

When I say newbie, I mean NEWbie. I don't own a boat. I've ridden on them, but have hardly ever even driven a boat. Yes, I am that crazy youngster with wild ideas creeping onto the forums. Call me nuts all you want, I understand! Because this is nuts. Here goes...

I've been obsessively following several blogs about people who save up, buy a sail boat, get the boat ready, quit their jobs, sell all their possesions (minus the boat, duh), and hit the water, southbound. Several of the people I'm following are from Michigan, so they hop onto Lake Michigan, cruise through the channels, to the Hudson River, & out into the Great Blue.

I've always been that person that is looking for that "thing" to quench my thirst for adventure. I don't do many adventurous things, but I'm not the same as others around me. The "norm" here is to graduate high school, maybe attend college, get married, have babies, work, die. And that's what I thought I wanted, until recently. I realized I want adventure first, before raising babies.

I've always been the warm-weather lover. Any chance I can, I get to the ocean. I take 1 vacation a year, & it's complete & total bliss. My happy place is the water. I've craved the lifestyle that comes with living in Florida or South Carolina or Mississippi - any where semi-close to the ocean. I've even recently been looking for homes down there. But that's not been tripping my trigger. Until I ran across some blogs about people who got out of the rat race & are sailing for years. That is something I am completely intrigued by. I'm like a race horse, waiting for the starting gate to open, and once it does, I'll mad dash it like a rabid wolf. (Totally my vision in my head...)

My crazy mind has begun to map out my future. I could buy a sailboat, get it ready (could take year(s)), make my main port Lake Pepin, & just hop on the Mississippi River & head South. Ideally, I would just sail to islands & places, & come back up the Mississippi in the Summer to see family/make a little money working somewhere. I could work on the islands, too. Who knows. See, I told you - semi-crazy. More like desperate.

I'm interested in hearing what anyone has to say about giving up the rat race to get out there & sail. Any one from Minnesota?

Thanks for being awesome about this.

-Ash
24, from Southern MN

[laika]

Hello fellow Minnesotan! You may end up adapting your plans a bit as things progress (such as sailing up the Miss every summer ) but I like where your heads at!

I did the mountain thing after high school, followed a girl out east, and finally hopped onto a boat in NYC to go cruising with friends. Bought my own boat about 4 years ago. 32 now. It's a wonderful lifestyle, with all the ups and downs that keeps life terribly interesting. The boating community is an awesome hodge podge of people.

If it's what you want to do then give it everything you got! It can be a lot of work but damned if you can put a price on what it gives you.

BTW, I'm in SC right now working..it's been 90+ and humid as hell for weeks! Happy place is boundary waters...

[Dan of Lungta]

Do it! Embrace life and it will embrace youback. It's an incredible, exciting, awe-inspiring world out here. We untied from the dock four years ago and have never regretted it for one minute.

[GordMay]

Greetings and welcome aboard the CF, Ash, and Dan.

[Tayana42]

Try to find some water that isn't frozen. Its easier to tack through. I'm sympathetic...when I lived in St. Paul I used to wind surf in a dry suit sliding my board out past the ice.


S/V B'Shert

[sailstoo]

Ash, I live in South Minneapolis and have a small (25') race keelboat at Wayzata (MN) Yacht Club (WYC). We turn out well over 125 boats, mostly one-design, on Thursday nights and there's lots of opportunity for newbies to get on a boat and learn to race/sail. My wife and I also have a 34' cruising sailboat in the Apostle Islands of Lake Superior. There's gotta be 500 boats there and again, lots of opportunities to sail and, again, those opportunities come through the Apostle Islands branch of WYC. You can find out more at www.wyc.org and feel free to PM me.