What are the odds to discover abandoned land in mainland waters (an island that is, small or big)?

[Alwin Alcott]

islands at mainland are extremely rare, and go for very high prices, so it's nearly unlikely you will ever find a abandoned one.

And if you do, because of the price LL will most certainly not sell it to first one that asks for it but put it in auction.

Linden homes are never situated at a island.

 

If you really want a island, you'll have to look at private sims.

[Alwin Alcott]

islands at mainland are extremely rare, and go for very high prices, so it's nearly unlikely you will ever find a abandoned one.

And if you do, because of the price LL will most certainly not sell it to first one that asks for it but put it in auction.

Linden homes are never situated at a island.

 

If you really want a island, you'll have to look at private sims.

[Lindal Kidd]

Alwin has given you an excellent answer.

Linden Homes are never listed as "Abandoned Land."  Some of them are fairly near water, but none are truly "waterfront" and they are not on islands.  They are in large "tract home subdivisions."  When you apply for a Linden Home, you can choose the style, but not the location of the home.  However, you can play "house roulette"...get a Linden Home, go see if it's in a nice location, and if it's not, Abandon it and apply for another one.  You can do this up to five times per day.

Abandoned Mainland is widely available.  However, it's extremely unlikely that you'll find any right on the waterfront.  People abandon a Mainland parcel when they find they can't sell it for a reasonable price in a reasonable time period and are tired of paying the tier on it.  Since waterfront land is in high demand, it's nearly always possible to sell it fairly quickly, so you won't find much Abandoned land in this category.

The best way to find and buy waterfront land is to either buy a Mainland parcel that's being sold by another resident, or lease a parcel on a private estate that is set up so as to provide a sizeable body of navigable water.  Use Search/Land and Rentals to find parcels of this sort.  You can set size and price parameters, and use "waterfront" as a search filter term.  Two estates that are good for sailing are FairChang and the Fruit Islands.

Another possibility is to RENT waterfront Mainland.  There are several rental operations scattered around the Blake Sea area...including mine.

[Abigail Longmeadow]

There are some mainland all water parcels for sale by owner in the Sea of Fables area. Fly around with the map open (Control M) and the For Sale box checked so the parcels will show up on the map. You can't raise terrain by more than 4 m in most mainland areas, so you can't usually make an island that way, but if you own a mainland water parcel, you can buy a mesh island and rez it just like you rez a skybox (either on the sea floor and then edit it to elevate the mesh object up to the surface, or use a HUD or Viewer that is able to rez a platform in empty space, then drag the island onto the platform from your inventory. You can't rez anything directly on the surface of the water unless you have a special HUD or viewer tool made to do that.)

Note: Water and protected water front mainland parcels are going to be expensive to purchase, but the monthly tier is the same as any other mainland. You must have a premium account to buy any mainland parcel, but don't need premium to just rent mainland from a mainland landlord.

Note2: You don't want an "offsim" island for this purpose, you want a real island that you can walk on on your own parcel.