"Sailing Off Into The Sunset"

I sometimes get asked about this and in my opinion there's a bit more to it than meets the eye. Here are a few suggestions.

"Sailing off into the sunset" is hard these days even for people with tons of money. One of the first things to consider is where you live. For example if you live anywhere on the US East Coast, "sailing off into the sunset" is a very difficult technical accomplishment. In fact it may be impossible. You will either crash into the dock at the west end of your marina, or run aground along some sandy coast. Either way you'll probably need costly repairs to the boat, and that will cut into the old nest egg. Some of the above comments will not apply if you have an amphibious vehicle.

Until a month or so ago it was possible to "sail off into the sunset" from the West Coast of Florida. Unfortunately the activities of Big Oil and some of their fully-owned subsidiaries in DC and Crawford, Texas, have curtailed a lot of this activity. Most of this sailing destination is now closed and will remain closed for what is called "the future" as far as marine life is concerned. According to the Federal Register "sailing off into the sunset" from western Florida is now under the control of the Department of Homeland Security and is regulated using armed USCG vessels. Be careful with this. It may be safer to just head for Cuba and suffer the consequences.

US West Coast sailors are luckier when it comes to "sailing off into the sunset." The only problems they encounter (besides racial profiling by the INS and Tea Party vigilante groups) are earthquakes and the accompanying tsunamis. I haven't personally experienced one of these but I'd guess that a set of sturdy drop boards and some good oilies are a good investment if you're thinking about this.

Happily these problems do not exist in many other parts of the world. If you live on the west coast of Ireland or in the Hebrides, you're good to go. Just don't forget to release all the docklines. The same is true for a lot of Portugal and western Spain. Western Africa is another possibility if you don't mind your typical bloody revolution every 3 weeks, genocide once or twice a decade, and bad drinking water. Do not (I repeat: DO NOT) enforce "close pack" on your crew. This leaves a bad impression with local authorities.

Right now we are not recommending Thailand, and in fact I'm not even sure they have a western coastline. I hear there are some bargain slips in Greece though. I don't want to give the impression that things are terrible everywhere, but you must admit that life used to be a lot simpler.