Thank you since I have not the slightest idea how to begin other than jumping in with both feet.
Well, you've said in a general way what you want to do with a boat. So things people will want to know are what kind of boating experience do you have thus far, what's a realistic description of what you want to do first with a boat, do you want to live aboard full time or will work keep you a free-time-only sort of boater (like me) for the time being, how many people do you anticipate boating with, and so on.
Once people know that stuff then, if the past serves as any indication, they'll start jumping in with their opinons on how you might want to go about doing what you want to do.
I'll give you my two cents right off the bat here. Since I have no idea of your boating experience in the kinds of cruising boats most of us on this forum have, if you don't have any or much you might want to charter a boat for a week or so in an area you're interested in boating in. This will get you experience with the basic type of boat we're talking about, and even more important, help you determine if you even like this kind of boat and this kind of boating.
Now perhaps you have a lot more experience already than I realize and you're more interested in figuring out what boat will best suit your requirements. But if you are fairly new to this whole thing, chartering is, in my opinion, one of the best ways to get started. It's what I and my wife did when we decided it would be interesting to find out what this cruising thing was all about. We each had plenty of boating experience already, but not with this kind of boating or boat.
And if by chance you know absolutley nothing about all this you can charter a skipper along with the boat.
So that's my two cents worth. Enjoy the ride from here and have fun.