I am leaving names and exact locations out of this...

But here was a situation that really had me wondering. I was prepping my boat for move from So Cal to PNW, by truck. On the same dock was a 34 foot Cal sailboat. The owner came over to talk to me... just to ask some questions. Now bear in mind that I am not the worldly sailor that some of you are. Most of my sailing has been coastal and really rather local (and lots and lots of racing, including many offshore multiday races). But no doubt the "saltiness" of my craft made this other owner believe I had vast experience on the open sea.

His first question was about where I was going. I told him I was prepping the boat to go north, and that on a trailer was the easiest way, due to the usual wind and current patterns... well he seemed somewhat surprised about that.

We continued chatting and I found out that he had just acquired his boat, (for less than 4K) did not have any charts at all, had only sailed for two weeks, and had only gone out in open water once. He showed me his GPS... a Garmin model that only displays lat and lon ("the cheapest one I could find"). So he kept asking questions about Mexico, where to get charts, how to read lat and lon, and generally expressed total lack of any knowledge what so ever regarding navigation and being at sea. (and his boat was very very unprepared... from the homemade "anchor" to poor quality of the sails.)

He was stating that his goal was to go to Costa Rica... and he and his non-english wife were headed down there.

He was at the dock to have the boat hauled, clean the bottom, and do a general inspection.

What do you do with this? I realized that the information this guy wanted would take me days or more likely weeks to pass on... and at the same time, all I could see was potential disaster about to happen.

So do you just walk down the dock and go away, or do you try to talk some sense into somebody like that?