Don't be afraid of the Broads... It's beautiful.
You have to have a breakwater, but most places facing open water have them by now. Even on the rough days, you can usually find a time to get in/out if you go early or late. Once in awhile a really strong front will go through in early/late season and it takes a couple days for things to settle down. You just watch the wind forecast and adapt. Even the Alton facing side of Rattlesnake has a bunch of pretty exposed places north of the peninsula.
My reservations about the Broads side of Rattlesnake is that the lots are almost all steep and many places have poor foundation piers. The combination of steep slopes, clay soils, lots of rocks and a place that never gets much sun to dry out, makes it hard to the the foundation piers right. We passed on 2 places for that reason (and one is still for sale 3+ years later).
A place on the Broads on the East side of the lake is perfect for me. Nice wild weather, but sun most of the day and not so much boat traffic.
Of course there are only a handful of islands with those specs. And I don't think there are any properties for sale on them.
One other thing to maybe consider is emergency access. Wolfeboro and Alton both have 911 boats that have done a good job the times I've heard of them being needed. I don't know about the more northern towns.
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