Who Are These People?! The Sequel

Ken, Kaylee and Danielle from Aqua Vida

Several months ago I wrote a blog post titled Who Are These People?!, which attempted to establish an unscientific breakdown of the folks who are crazy enough to sell all their belongings, move aboard a boat, and then shove off to cross open water.

At the time, we had just arrived in the Bahamas and our view on the matter was necessarily informed by our geographic location. The gist of what I concluded then was that there are basically three groups -- 20-something cruisers, mostly male, who haven't yet established their own families or solid careers. The largest group is retired couples, a not inconsiderable number in their early 70s. And then us, the smallest subset, who decided to carve a chunk out of mid-life and do something completely different. Like the crew of Symbiosis, most of the 'tweeners have the expectation that shore-side careers (or at least jobs) will need to be resuscitated sometime in the not-too-distant future.

As we get farther south, the demographics appear to be shifting. What follows is my second unscientific take on the issue:

The dividing line is drawn through George Town, the cruising mecca of the Exumas. It is aptly nicknamed "Chicken Harbor" -- either it demarks the southern terminus of the journey or the gateway to points south and east along the "thorny path." I would guess that it is the former for about 90 percent of the Americans and Canadians there. For Europeans it's different; most arrived here from across the pond and many of them will make the return trip at some point.

Past George Town, cruisers such as Noi and I (firmly in the middle) become less rare. The youngest subset of "playboy cruisers" seems to have fallen off almost entirely, replaced instead by folks in their 30s and 40s, frequently with children aboard. The oldest subset is decidedly smaller. The older retirees (I say "older" because some in the middle category are on early retirement) are still around, but they tend to be in their early to mid-60s instead of 70s.

In short, the whole group is being squashed toward the middle. Here are a few brief profiles:

-- Lucas and Petra, aboard their Tayana 37 Salicious (same boat as ours) are in their early to mid 30s, with their almost 2-year-old, Oliver. Oliver has  taken to the boat like a baby orangutan. The family are from the Czech Republic. Lucas is a construction worker by trade. The couple flew to Florida, bought their boat, and set off for the Bahamas. They plan to keep the boat in St. Thomas (U.S.V.I.) for hurricane season.

-- Steve and Melissa, roughly 50, aboard a Beneteau-esque 50 Yarika, are nurses from Texas who have two teens aboard, Claire and Aran. They also plan to spend hurricane season in St. Thomas, where they will pick up some nursing work.

-- Aqua Vida, with Ken and Danielle and 7-year-old Kaylee are roughly in the same middle category as Steve, Melissa and us -- though they are on early retirement. Ken and Danielle, from Tallahassee, worked together before taking early retirement -- he as a civil engineer on water projects and she as a mathematician in the same office. They don't have a schedule per se, except the plan is for Kaylee to re-enter a regular school at some point. So, it's not open-ended for them. This year, like us, they will go to Grenada or Trinidad for hurricane season.

-- Frank and Diane, aboard their Caliber 39 Utopia, exemplify the "new normal" for the last group. They are in their 60s and made a decision to shove off immediately after retirement. Both from New York, he worked as a salesman for many years. They plan to put their boat on the hard in Antigua for hurricane season.

Diane and Frank from Utopia with Noi

Why has the cruising clique acquired a middle-aged bulge? I speculate:

The "playboy cruiser" group has time, but not too much time. They can justify taking perhaps a year off from getting their lives underway, but two or three years begins to look more like a misspent youth on a job application. So, for many of them, I think, it's one-year and out. That makes the Bahamas a practical destination, but not so much the eastern Caribbean.

The oldest subset is shrinking for the simple reason that cruising is more strenuous than many non-sailors realize. Aging bodies, some with creeping health problems (knees, hips, etc.) are starting to limit this group. Another factor: grandchildren. Grandparents want to be there. Cruising doesn't always make that easy.

As for the 30-somethings with small children, I am not entirely sure why this group is getting a bit larger, but that does seem to be the case.

What about the lone-wolf single-hander? They are still out there, but pretty rare. Dan aboard Vagabond, a Vagabond 47 ketch, is technically going it along, but he nearly always travels with pick-up crew.

The irony, for us at least, is that we started out thinking we were a rare breed (or perhaps a bit crazier than average in the estimation of our fellow cruisers), but as we keep going, we are finding that in fact we have become well, commonplace!