Problem with that is the first thing they did for the plandemic was to curtail all travel, and a lot of people who had been doing just that for years found themselves locked out of every port, and being forced to live on the hook off of an outlying island. Not near as easy as it sounds. No repair or maintenance parts available, no fresh water unless you have a water plant onboard, but no fuel to run that either. American waters are closed, too, and the Coast Guard has been very busy. Good luck even getting out of American waters, especially with even a BB gun on board when it really hits the fan. It's not as bad as it's going to be in American waters yet, but keep in mind that as worthless as the Supreme Court is about protecting your God-given rights, the Admiralty court is even less so, and people have been getting boarded, and searched from stem to stern for decades, without a warrant or cause. When they get after you at sea, there's nowhere to run or hide. The state of Georgia recently passed a law taxing anyone even trying to drop anchor in their waters, so the money and power grab now extends there, too.

Forget any kind of medical care, too, if you do make it out. Even if they let you leave the boat to see a doctor, most medical care is below even third world standards. Many cruisers have expensive medical insurance to fly them back to the states if they need anything more than a Band-Aid and some Bactine. In some places, you are better off having a pygmy witchdoctor dance around you and poke you with a stick than to be treated in their shithole "medical clinic". Forget what you see in the brochures with the smiling blonde bimbo and pictures of some clean facility with Dr. Pajeet holding a shiny clean stethoscope in a nice white coat. You might find that in Cancun at the hospital reserved for millionaires, but it ain't happening for you, brother. Oh and that rathole clinic out on bumfuck island or in the glorious People's Republic of Bananaland, which looks like a Mexican bar's bathroom after 5 peso beer night, will charge you up front, cash, no insurance taken, just empty your wallet at the door while Jorge wipes off that old kitchen table with a greasy rag and shoos the chickens out.

Then you have the fact that the Caribbean is now overrun with drug runners, cutthroats and other dirtbags, and every little island nation is strongly anti-gun and anti-self defense, and it only gets worse. Sure you can maybe hide a gun away, many use flare guns, spear guns, and machetes, things they can claim is boating equipment, but the moment you use it to defend yourself, the hammer will come down. Especially if you are a white American. And if you do use a gun, especially one you haven't declared, you will get to experience the special hell that is prison life in the islands. For a very long time. The crime has become so bad that cruise lines were buying islands to have a safe place to take their clients to, and hiring mercenaries to guard them. Until they got shut down too. Even the major ports, usually kept looking nice for the tourist dollars to keep flowing, have become overrun to the point that the police are giving up.

This global power grab isn't making much difference in the Caribbean, it was already spiraling down into it's own private hell for over a decade now. Over a century if you consider a lot of it was bought up by the global elite for plantations at the turn of the last century. But they at least kept up appearances, they aren't even bothering with that now.

The Pacific is not going to be much better. You have Hawaii which makes California look like a conservative paradise, Australia and New Zealand was seized by the globalists 20 years ago, and between them, the cancer is spreading throughout the remaining islands. About the only islands not being taken over and ruined is a couple of remote areas in Papua New Guinea, since the cannibal headhunters don't negotiate, and neither does the terrain. Do I even have to talk about the South China Sea or Madagascar and the Somali pirates?

So you want to go anyway? I admire your nerve, kid, you got moxie. Let's take a look at it. Getting a sailboat is cheap. The market is flooded now with used boats. All those upper middle class posers wanting to live the high life, riding the wave of their land and stock deals, are now broke, and can't afford the maintenance and marina fees. Hell, many will give you a boat just to be rid of the bills, and it will be in decent shape, and seaworthy. (You're smart enough to avoid those marina drydock queens parked and abandoned for years in the back row I assume). Maybe you will have to pay back-owed marina fees to be able to take possession, but even that will be cheap compared to what that boast cost, or is worth now, most often. Sounds great! Well hold on there my little squidlet. There's going to be a hefty price tag to get it registered. Buying a large cruising sailboat (you weren't stupid enough to buy or take one of those overpriced and tied to a fuel dock power boats or trawlers) is a lot like buying a house. Lots of paperwork, titling, etc. and a government tax and fee at every step, even if you avoid letting a broker handle the deal. Oh and those brokers? They're just like real estate agents, happy to handle it all for a price, and have the same scam going, petitioning the government to keep the process as complicated as possible so they can keep raking it in. Yes, you can do it all yourself, and many do, but the risks are the same as buying a house, you might just spend all that time and money to have someone come along and take it from you because their grandad had title to that boat at some point in it's life, and it wasn't properly transferred, or even worse, it was bought in Europe, and the paperwork wasn't properly done, so now you owe a shit-ton of import duties, fees, and taxes plus another mountain of paperwork under threat of imprisonment to keep the boat you already have. That's just to get the fun to begin......

"Hard to love a ship, ships rot" -Bully Hayes
If it's in the water, nature attacks it. Salt water or fresh, there is something that is going to be corroding, rotting, or just wearing out on a boat. If it's out of the water, then the weather takes over. Keeping that boat in shape is going to be a full time job, especially when you don't have money to throw at it. Hope you're not afraid of heights, that mast is 40-60ft high (depending on the boat), and those waves gently rocking the deck are waving that mast top around like a whip. Can't put it off either, if you run without that mast light at night, Uncle Sam or glorious benevolent dictator Manuel's boys are going to come after you. Then those pricy electronics ( a marine radio is mandatory by law, and there's a host of other electronics that you will need, like radar and GPS, it's not the 18th century anymore) are corroding away from all that damp salty air. Marine toilets are notorious for failing, usually at the worst time, and can even sink the boat if not maintained in top shape. You aren't just going to put any old parts in, either, marine grade hardware costs the big bucks, and anything less will fail quickly. Take a look through a marine parts catalogue sometime.

There is a good reason that those who have the cash are willing to pay you under the table to work on their boat, it's hard, dirty work. . But then, how are you going to get the job? Dock rats are a dime-a-dozen, most of whom already know most of the boat owners in the area. To be fair, some made a go of it, and made it work, but they lived like bums, and most moved on to real jobs later in life. Most fail, and end up losing everything. There are a lot of abandoned boats in every odd corner of the Caribbean and South Pacific.

As to starting your own country in a group of small unclaimed islands somewhere, there aren't any, other than a few small atolls that constantly get washed away in some areas of the pacific, and even those are within the maritime boundaries of one nation or another's claim. Set up shop and declare yourself king of Freelandia, and some Naval cruiser is going to come by and blast you, and what little is left of your new country will lie in a smoking crater. But why? you ask, why would they give a rat's about some little island in the middle of nowhere, that no one has set one foot on for over a century? International law. In particular, fishing and mineral rights are tied to who owns what, and where. No one lives on that island since they stopped gathering guano in 1919, but holding that island means they have the fishing and mineral rights for the area around it, and brother, those are worth a lot of cold hard cash.

Look at the Falklands. Argentina and Great Britain have been pissing on each other over those islands for 200 years. Do you think GB cares about some sheep and a handful of half-assed sheep herders on a frozen rock near the Antarctic because the queen likes having soft sheepskin slippers? No it's about oil money, and "national pride" (what little is left of it these days) but mostly about the money, you can be sure. So they went to war with Argentina, and spent millions of pounds and numerous lives to take it back, to keep that oil money flwoing. Otherwise they'd have let Argentina have it a century ago. So for whoever owns it, taking you out to keep the island of El Guano Grande in their portfolio wouldn't even be a minor thought, or bother. It wouldn't be more than a training exercise for them, and the UN certainly won't give a fuck.

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but this isn't going to be the answer.

Boating is expensive. Foraging is hard. Boating is high skill, high labor.

If you're solo, and skilled, it might be a way however. Sailboats, especially old cruisers are going for a pittance.

Alas, the free boat is always the most expensive.. Fair winds buddy ;)

I think this may be an amazing idea, I did get seasick on big water but I'm sure you get used to it. I wonder what it would take and I'm sure bigger boat the better for big waves and storms.