tropical cruising circuit, between seeing all those overtanned blissed-out white people, endless cruiser potluck/volleyball games organized on the beach at night, and talking boat systems ad nauseum

Just yanking everyone's chain a bit. There is a grain --perhaps more than a grain-- of truth to all stereotypes, of course...not that there's anything wrong with that, of course I may too go that route.

One of these days, when I'm old and gray, I hope to have a wooden engine-less, kerosene-lit boat, and confound all the folks in the anchorage tapping away on their iPads who will have never heard of a boat like that. Of course, I will have an Engel on board, and one teeny-weeny high output solar panel cleverly concealed (for, by that time, a 300 watt panel will be the size of a magazine cover, should they still exist then, that is