Why? The answer lies in the children that we have met living aboard boats with their families.

The cruising kids that we have known have been active and knowledgeable, curious about the sea, other people, and the great ...Read more]]> There is no topic that we have covered as often and as thoroughly as going sailing with children aboard.

Why? The answer lies in the children that we have met living aboard boats with their families.

The cruising kids that we have known have been active and knowledgeable, curious about the sea, other people, and the great big world they sail. They tend to have loving, respectful relationships with their parents, and are at ease with adults as well as children of different ages and backgrounds. We have seen them grow up to be creative, engaged, caring adults.

Society is all too ready to discourage families that want to go cruising. So, we want to counteract that by giving families as much information (and inspiration) as we can to help them decide whether to go sailing, and if so, how to do it.

Quite a few cruising families have told their stories and shared their advice on Women and Cruising. 20+ families have participated in our “12 Questions for Sailing Families” series in the past 6 years.

Five children so far have written in our “Cruising Kids Speak” series. And a growing number of cruising Moms and children have written for the Women and Cruising blog.

 If you are thinking about going cruising as a family, explore the Women and Cruising site and get to know these sailors through the articles that they have written.

And here is another resource: Several of these cruising families have written books that will inform and inspire you in pursuing your dreams and your plans. Enjoy!

Voyaging with Kids – A Guide to Family Life Afloat
By Behan Gifford, Sara Dawn Johnson and Michael Robertson, 2015

Behan Gifford and the s/v Totem family were one of the first contributors to our “12 Questions for Sailing Families”.

When they first wrote in 2010, they were just starting out.

Since then, they have circumnavigated, maintained an excellent blog, and together with two other cruising families, written an excellent, thorough guide on voyaging with children.

The book is available in both print and ebook.

Lesson Plans Ahoy (Third Edition): Hands-on Learning for Sailing Children and Home Schooling Sailors 
By Nadine Slavinski, 2013, 2014, 2015

Nadine also wrote:
- Lesson Plans To Go: Hands-on Learning for Active and Home Schooling Families
- Cruising the Caribbean with Kids: Fun, Facts, and Educational Activities

Merlin’s Voyage
By Emmanuelle Buecher-Hall, 2014

Emmanuelle and the Merlin family also contributed to the original “12 Questions for Sailing families” series.

They built a catamaran in South Africa, then sailed away crossing the Atlantic and the Pacific oceans, before settling in Australia.

Inspired by the voyage, Emmanuelle wrote the delightful Merlin’s Voyage, a book written for young children. In the story, Merlin is a curious catamaran which carries a family with young kids from South Africa to the Pacific.

It is available as an ebook or paperback, in French and in English.

Child of the Sea: A Memoir of a Sailing Childhood
By Doina Cornell, 2012

In 1975, when Doina was 7, the Cornell family left their home port in London, England, and set off cruising.

Over the next 6 years, the family circumnavigated. This is the story of their experiences from the child’s perspective.

Doina is one of the many wonderful examples of the formative effects of a cruising childhood.

As a mother, teacher, writer, and district councilor in England, Doina is a passionate champion for the environment and for tolerance and diversity.

Child of the Sea is available in paperbook, ebook and audiobook.

Boat Girl: A Memoir of Youth, Love, and Fiberglass
Melanie Neale, 2012

Melanie also wrote:
Boat Kid: How I Survived Swimming with Sharks, Being Homeschooled, and Growing Up on a Sailboat

Convergence: A Voyage through French Polynesia
By Sally-Christine Rodgers, 2014

This beautiful book written by Women and Cruising contributor Sally-Christine Rodgers comes with a bonus: all proceeds from the book are donated to marine conservation.

Sally Christine and her husband, Randy Repass, founder of West Marine, designed and built a custom Wylie 65 ketch.

Sally-Christine describes the design of the boat and then the 3,000 mile voyage to the Marquesas they undertook with their new boat, accompanied by their 9-year-old son, and another family with two 4-year-old twins. She describes their experiences in the beautiful islands of the South Pacific, which she illustrates with superb photography.

The journey she recounts is both descriptive and personal – throughout she writes as a sailor, wife, mother, lover, and passionate advocate for care of the marine environment.

Next week, I will highlight another collection of books for sailors and sailing wanna-be’s on the theme of Voyage Planning.

Leaving land life behind to go cruising can seem like a big step, but coming home afterwards can be just as challenging.

We’ve completed two extended “seabatticals,” and the emotional process of transitioning back was very different each time. The physical process, on the other hand, ...Read more]]> This article was first published on YachtPals.com.

Leaving land life behind to go cruising can seem like a big step, but coming home afterwards can be just as challenging.

We’ve completed two extended “seabatticals,” and the emotional process of transitioning back was very different each time. The physical process, on the other hand, was similar: in each case, we came back to the same town in the same part of the world (Bavaria) and in my case, to the same job.

With those experiences in mind, I’ll look at how each of us transitioned back and what factors helped ease that process.

First trip: In the Caribbean

• Our first trip (2007-2008) was a year-long cruise which took us from the Mediterranean, across the Atlantic, around the eastern Caribbean, and up to US East Coast to Maine.

Our son went from being 3 to 4 years old during that time, and my husband and I both had a leave of absence from work so we could return to the same jobs. We had given up our rented home and sold the car, so when we came home, we had those things to sort out.

For me, coming home from the first trip proved to be a surprisingly difficult transition and it took months to get out of the slump.

• Our second trip (2011-2014) was a three-year trip that took us from Maine to Australia on the same boat.

Second trip: Back in our apartment in Bavaria

Our son completed grades 2, 3, and 4 during that trip, an upon our return, he went back to the same school he left after grade 1. I had a leave of absence from work while my husband resigned from his position.

We were able to sublet our rental apartment and loan out our car, so when we came home, we had both waiting for us.

For me, the transition back from that trip was very smooth due to factors beyond those conveniences.

We also lucked in to a very long, easy-going transition time: after we sold the boat in Australia, we enjoyed land travel for six weeks before going to Maine for another six weeks. In Maine, we were land-bound but right on the edge of the ocean, and we weren’t working yet.

We returned to our home in Germany with two weeks before “real life” started up in earnest with the start of a new school year.

In Maine. New challenges and new forms of fun are one good way
to fight post-cruising blues

Each trip, therefore, was followed by a very different experience.

Although our first trip was shorter, it took me a much longer time to transition back afterwards.

Why?

The biggest factor, I believe, is that we finished the first trip wishing for more sailing time. Although we accomplished everything we intended from the outset, it still felt too short. We had just tasted the sailing life and it was time to go home.

During that trip, we also met several sailing families who continued in to the Pacific and seeing them carry on while we headed home had me regretting that I hadn’t dared to dream an even bigger dream.

The transition back, at least for me, was hard, because my heart and soul were still out cruising. Compounding that was the fact that the apartment we did find wasn’t available for nearly two months, so we had a long period of temporary housing to deal with as well.

To my surprise, coming back from the three-year trip was much easier. I thought it would be harder, but that didn’t prove to be the case.

The two main reasons for this were that

1. We had planned for a two-year trip and were able to extend it into three full years, so it already felt we’d won a lottery,
2. Though I could have continued cruising forever, we had a greater sense of completion than after the first trip.
   Much as we would have loved another three years in the Pacific, we felt like we had seen and done more than we ever wished for.
   In addition, most of the dear friends we made along the way wrapped up their sailing adventures at around the same time, so there wasn’t so much of that feeling of watching the rest of the kids enjoying the playground while we were stuck indoors.

Germany: Meeting our fellow sailors who have also returned home
has helped the transition back.

Finally, we were also able to come home to the very same apartment – a home we love in a town we love in a gorgeous part of the world. Part of the latter was true the first time around, in that we also came home to the same town, though dealing with temporary housing was a significant issue for me.

My main frustrations on coming home the second time were small things, like the shock of coming home from a beautifully simple, off-the-grid life to a world that is even more absorbed in electronic devices and multimedia entertainment.

After the second trip, I slipped easily back into the same job, though it took a while to adjust to the idea that I would be doing it for years and not just as a short stint. Six months down the line, I’ve digested that fact at last!

And what about my husband and my son?

• With our son, it’s hard to judge because he had a smooth transition each time.

He was only four years old after the first trip and would have just been starting in a new school anyway. His kindergarten teacher did comment that he seemed a little overwhelmed by being surrounded by twenty other children all the time. (He had been in day care previously with the same number of children, but during our year at sea he got accustomed to having no more than two or three playmates at a time.)

After the second trip, he re-entered the same school. We were very lucky that a number of the students he knew from grade 1 were in his new grade 5 class – including his closest school buddy, with whom he’d been in email contact throughout the cruise.

The boat kids of Suwarrow, Cook Islands

So for our son, the transition was quite easy, too. He had enjoyed the company of several other kids while cruising (as well as attending a few local schools and a summer camp in New Zealand), so the group social situation of school wasn’t as much of a shock to him.

The main observations his teacher made was that he was so used to home schooling alone that he had a hard time working in pairs – in the sense that he’d do his half and let his partner do the other half without realizing that it ought to be a collaborative process.

I was surprised, because while sailing, he collaborated beautifully with kids of different ages, backgrounds, and even languages. However, those were all informal situations and it seems that it took some time to transfer the skill to a school setting.

• My husband reports that transitioning back home after the second trip was slightly more difficult than after the first, though not by a great deal. He had no trouble finding a new job after the second trip, and although it was at a different company, he was familiar with the setting since he had consulted for that company while in his previous employer.

How broadly applicable are our experiences?

It’s hard to say. The sailors we know who’ve done the same kinds of sailing trip have a range of experiences to report. Some came back to their previous homes and immediately thrived, while others floundered. Others settled in entire different places (even different countries) and again, some are full of cheery news while others sing the blues. The question is, is there a single secret to success?

One sailor I spoke with observed that there are so many books that help you go cruising, but none that help with the transition back. It may well be that the variables range over such a wide spectrum that it’s hard to establish a pattern.

I’m no expert, but I will mention two things that helped ease both transitions back for us (aside from the obvious: having jobs to pay the bills and alleviate that stress).

1. One was maintaining contact with sailing friends – both those still out there and those who like us are back to more humdrum lives. They’re the ones who understand us best and with whom we laugh the deepest laughs, smile the widest smiles.
   
   

   Two families who last met in the Cook Islands reunite on a weekend hike

2. The second factor was having a new goal that I could be passionate about working toward to replace the “loss” of the sailing lifestyle.

For me, that goal was writing Lesson Plans Ahoy after I returned from the first trip, as well as writing magazine articles for the sailing press. These gave me a chance to relive parts of my trip while producing something valuable for others, which is rewarding.

My goal now that we’re back from the second trip is to not only write more non-fiction (like Pacific Crossing Notes and Cruising the Caribbean with Kids), but to branch into fiction writing as well. This includes my two sea adventure novels (The Silver Spider and Rum for Neptune) as well as other projects in the works.

In many ways, these fiction-writing goals give me the new horizons I crave, and that’s another reason that this second transition was a smoother one. If I had come home with the feeling that the grand adventure was over and had nothing to look forward to, I would be telling a very different story right now.

We count our blessings every day – those that allowed us to go sailing in the first place, and those that give us new aspirations now that we’re back. We’re thankful for our health, luck, and the family members who let us go, then welcomed us back, not to mention friends and employers who generously did the same.

Are we done with sailing?

Not by a long shot! But we’re content to pay our dues and pursue other goals until we earn a third chance to live the sailing life we so enjoy. Someday!

About Nadine Slavinski

caption.

Nadine Slavinski is a parent, sailor, and Harvard-educated teacher.

She lived aboard her 1981 Dufour 35 for four years and cruised from Europe to the Caribbean, North America, and on to Australia together with her husband and young son.

She is the author of three sailing guides:

• Pacific Crossing Notes: A Sailor’s Guide to the Coconut Milk Run,
• Cruising the Caribbean with Kids: Fun, Facts, and Educational Activities,
• Lesson Plans Ahoy: Hands-on Learning for Sailing Children and Home Schooling Sailors Paperback.

Her next project is The Silver Spider, a novel of sailing and suspense.

Her articles and links to all her books are available on her website: www.nslavinski.com

Read more on this website:

• Nadine Slavinski Answers 12 Questions on Sailing as a Family
• Sailing Families Revisited: The NAMANI Sailing Family update
• Back to land: Choking on the anchor, by Clare Collins

Girl overboard! – Photo by Kristianne Koch

I stood on the bowsprit as we sailed Biscayne Bay.

The wind swept the swelter of the sun from my skin.

A bucket of Noon rain ...Read more]]> Author Ann Lee Miller shares an excerpt from her memoir, Boat Daze, due out in 2016 about growing up on a yawl.

Girl overboard! – Photo by Kristianne Koch

I stood on the bowsprit as we sailed Biscayne Bay.

The wind swept the swelter of the sun from my skin.

A bucket of Noon rain had dumped and now steamed up from the decks of the Annie Lee, taking my troubles—real and imagined—with it.

“Annie!” Dad hollered from the cockpit. “Check our depth.”

I startled and scrambled for the world’s longest mop handle and jabbed it into the water until it struck bottom. 
“Six feet!” I read from the notches Dad had carved in the pole.
“Six and a half… six and a half!” We drew four feet, so I knew we were okay for the moment. I rammed the pole through the seaweed into the muddy bottom again.
“Six—”

The ANNIE LEE sailing away after I fell over the side – Photo by Kristianne Koch

The pole stuck fast in the mud.

In a split-second reflex, I clung to the stick and the Annie Lee sailed out from under my feet.

The pole sunk deeper in the mud as I wrapped my arms and legs around it—suspended over the bay like a girl shish kabob. “Daaaad!” I clung to the pole while my brain registered I wasn’t reading this in Nancy Drew, but living it.

My brother jumped up and down on the aft deck screeching, “Daddy, Daddy! Annie lost the boat!”

I caught a fleeting glimpse of R.J.’s sun-toasted face gone pale as my toes touched bay.

“This water is freezing.” I yelled at the Annie Lee’s transom. “There’s mud down here! I hate seaweed! God only knows what’s slithering around in here!”

Cold fingers of water and fear climbed my ribs as I inched down the pole. Dad would rescue me, but the barracuda and hammerhead I’d met this summer still lived between my ears.

In up to my neck and treading water with one hand, I kicked slimy kelp.

Treading water, debating swimming for the ANNIE LEE
Photo by Kristianne Koch

The chill crawled up my scalp as my hair slurped sea, morphing into soggy noodles.

Water lapped into my mouth and I tried to spit out the salty taste and my fear, but they hung around.

I peered at the shoreline. I could swim that far if I had to.

Clouds bunched their way across the horizon, white bumper cars converging and parting.

In the distance, Dad dropped sail. The anchor would be next. I knew Dad wouldn’t about-face the Annie Lee in shallow water to fetch me.

Should I swim for the boat and drag the stupid pole along?

While I debated, Dad landed on cat feet in the dinghy, shoved the oars into the oarlocks. He glanced over his shoulder to get a bead on my location.

Dad’s shoulders and arms flexed and relaxed under his T-shirt as he stroked.

Dad always loomed larger than life, but today as I watched him, he approached super-hero status.

At last he coasted up beside me. He grabbed my forearms and hauled me into the boat with a grunt. I couldn’t read his tight-lipped expression.

I inhaled the scent of Dad’s sweat and safety as I landed in a soggy lump in the bottom of the dinghy.

Dad braced his legs and yanked the pole from the bay in one heave.

The pole clattered where he dropped it—one end extended over the bow, the other oozing mud into the water behind the dinghy.

As I launched into a litany of every little detail Dad needed to know about my lapse overboard, I thought about how good it felt to be rescued.

I usually felt left to fend for myself.

Normal was bumping my knees against the ring where Mom and Dad went rounds in a marital bout. When they shed their mouth guards and gloves, and stepped off the mat into Mom and Dad, they were black and blue and beat.

I walked alone two stints of kindergarten—Miami and LA. My barracuda and shark were a graffiti-scrawled tunnel and a freeway bridge where cars whizzed by my elbow, blowing exhaust in my hair.

At seven, I rode two Miami buses to ballet, poised on my knees with my hand at half-mast beneath the pull cord.

I fixed my own breakfast every day. And once or twice I forgot and fainted in school.

My third grade picture—put down for posterity in the family album—is a shot of the Pippi Longstocking braids I did myself.

Mom pasted a smile on life, as if a Groucho Marx nose and mustache could make happy.

But when I really needed them—like today—my parents came through.

They whisked me to the hospital when I downed a bottle of baby aspirin as a kid.

Mom carted me to the orthodontist to un-buck my teeth, the orthopedist to fix my inward-turning feet—with ballet, saddle shoes, and nighttime boots nailed east and west on a plywood board.

Dad taught me how to pinch a penny, skin a fish, and feel things deep down in my gullet.

Back on the Annie Lee, before my suit completely dried, Dad spotted the cove he’d been looking for. We’d tie up along the seawall and head inland.

But we dropped sail too late and came in hot against the concrete.

A crunch sounded as the Annie Lee sideswiped the rough wall, skinning off a two-foot section of fiberglass, resin, and paint.

I gritted my teeth. We should be called the Four Stooges instead of the Fettermans.

But Dad went grimly about tying the Annie Lee to nearby pines, positioning the bumpers to insure there’d be no more blunders today.

 We tumbled out onto land and traipsed after Dad.

My mood had swung south with Dad’s. I swatted a mosquito from my sweaty neck and braced myself for an afternoon digging clams with my fingernails or wading through mangrove swamp hunting antique bottles.

Dad stopped and my nose bashed into his shoulder blade.

A rope swung in the breeze from the high reaches of a banyan tree. Sun dappled the smooth green water below.

My mouth dropped open.

A tree-gnarled Nirvana.

I glanced at R.J. and saw my grin written on his face.

Dad climbed down the bank and scouted the rope’s span for rocks and logs. Satisfied, he caught the rope with a dead branch and pushed it into my waiting hands.

I swung out into air and let go. Cucumber crisp water closed around me, encasing me in a delicious coolness I’d thought frigid when I fell overboard.

Dropping like an ice cube into the delicious, cool cove – Photo by Kristianne Koch

An hour later, I perched on a sprawling tree root at water’s edge, breathing hard. Rivulets ran down my arms. I wrung the moisture from my hair and watched my family swing and drop like ice cubes into the cove.

R.J. did a cannon ball, Dad a jackknife, and Mom, a graceless plop.

I laughed at R.J.’s next let-go. His arms and legs flailed in mid-air before landing in the water.

I savored this sweetest day of childhood—not realizing it would shine through the stormy seas ahead.

I savored this sweet day of childhood. – Photo by Kristianne Koch

About Ann Lee Miller

Ann Lee Miller earned a BA in creative writing from Ashland (OH) University and writes full-time in Phoenix, but left her heart on a yawl in Miami where she grew up. 

Over 100,000 copies of Miller’s debut novel, Kicking Eternity, have been downloaded from Amazon.

When she isn’t muddling through some crisis-real or imagined-you’ll find blogging sailing memoir at AnnLeeMiller.com.

Ann’s fifth novel, Chasing Happy was launched September 1, 2015.

After an epic fail in the hetero world, Ash Jackson heads cross country to Arizona to figure out his bisexuality and make peace with himself and God.
     Nashville Star Samma Templeton’s music career bankrolls her future husband’s political campaigns. But she throws up before every concert and feels relegated to an item on the senator’s calendar.
     When Ash moves into Samma’s apartment building their childhood friendship resurrects, and Samma must choose between promoting a political agenda that will benefit millions or following her heart. Ash must face his inner demons for the girl who was his past and feels like his future.

Chasing Happy is available at Amazon and most on-line retailers.

Read also on this website:

• Pint-sized Maritime Explorers, by Ann Lee Miller
• Living Aboard—Same-Old-Same-Old When You’re 12, by Ann Lee Miller
• Cruising Children Speak: Cruising children tell us about their experiences growing up aboard.

It is even more distressing to find that it is not an easy adjustment. For many reasons cruisers find themselves landlocked, whether by choice, or by ...Read more]]> When all your adult life you have dreamed of and planned for a life aboard and cruising, it is a disorientating stumble to face a turn-around back to land.

It is even more distressing to find that it is not an easy adjustment. For many reasons cruisers find themselves landlocked, whether by choice, or by need, and it can be harder than you imagine.

While slipping away and sloughing the cares of land is an attractive lure, complete independence from terra firma is hard to achieve. Cruising as a family with four children ranging from tot to teens, we frequently faced the need to be near land for both medical and educational reasons.

We and many other cruising families have also found the need to be stationery while the breadwinner flies off from some accessible airport to earn the money needed to maintain a young and growing family and their bobbing home.

Recently, the need for major surgery for one child and the serious pursuit of a musical career of another, combined with the ever increasing toll of long distance commuting to support it all, has meant that we have temporarily become landlubbers, living a long way from our boat.

Hot and cold running showers a few steps from our beds, an upright fridge and freezer that is not accessed from under a bunk, a dishwasher and washing machine, all within centrally heated or cooled comfort are delightful luxuries.

Not having to don a raincoat to walk up to the showers is a novelty I will always appreciate, but there are many aspects of the transition that have been very hard.

We have all suffered mourning and depression. While this has not been a forced situation born of a crisis, such as losing the boat altogether – ours is still safely awaiting our return- we were not prepared for the emotional toll that the change would bring.

It is not surprising that so many metaphors for life apply sailing terminology. ‘Rudderless’ is an entirely apt term to describe the experience of having to make such a significant change to a life plan.

It has also been ironic that the classic perceived negatives of the cruising life have been truer of life on land.

Loneliness has been hard to bear.

While an arrival into a new anchorage or marina is the signal for instant meet-ups and friendships, moving into a house, especially one where there has already been a long stretch of often anti-social prior renters, one is not necessarily met with any sort of welcome.

The children were highly disappointed not to receive the ring of the door-bell and the classic plate of cookies.

Being buried in snow for the next few months meant the entire neighborhood was housebound and isolated.

We had sufficient family heirlooms to make storage of some essential furniture, books, photographs, and sentimental items logical when we sold everything else. We were offered so little for our furniture that it made sense to store rather than sell it, especially as we could face just such circumstances that would require us to stock up all over again.

While the cost of storage has made the saving on repurchasing a bit questionable, it certainly helped our transition to have the familiarity and comfort of our own things in the alien context of a completely new town.

It was like Christmas for our youngest, surrounded by hand-me-down toys and much beloved books, but it was disconcerting for our daughter as a teenager to come face to face with her much younger pink and doll-loving self.

Some aspects of sailing have been hard to shake. My family jokes that you can take the woman off the boat but you cannot take the boat out of the woman, when I provision madly before every snow storm as if preparing for a three-week passage.

We are also hyper-aware of every approaching storm, and anxiously watch the skies and weather reports. Our poor son, studying in New York and hoping to be there to watch the 4th of July fireworks, rushed home early at our request, so nervous were we at the approach of Hurricane Arthur!

Our rental home has skylights so we have kept the sensation of hatches and the sound of rain beating on them, and still can’t quite believe we do not to have to rush around shutting and checking to make sure there are no leaks.

While I do enjoy the convenience of an attached garage, by not having to walk outside, we have not only lost the sea, but the sky as well.

The myriad changes that become the backdrop of your daily existence on the water and on foot are all but lost when surrounded by buildings and the roof of a car.

We keep finding we forget to go out in time to see the blood moon or the super moon or a meteor shower that would have been unavoidable at sea.

While medical and educational needs were part of the anchor chain, and we have been so glad to have been able to achieve those goals, they also come with the stress of ferrying and co-ordinating multiple family schedules.

Ironically, we had a far better and more economical meal schedule while cruising because the whole family was on the same single schedule.

Maintaining a boat and an entirely separate home make it all but impossible to actually save any money for the next cruise, despite attempts to live frugally.

I truly believe that all life is an adventure and an opportunity to learn.

Just as we take our children to sea in order to see the world and learn life skills, there are many things to see and learn in the midst of unexotic, unromantic urban life, not least of which is that sometimes that is how life is.

There were unexpected skills that needed to be learned or relearned, like the handling of glassware in combination with granite counter-tops.

The kids are all acquiring seasonal skills, like the most efficient ways to rake leaves, shovel snow, and mow lawns. For the first time, they are needing to and learning how to iron!

There are driving lessons and money to be earned from gardening and catering ; there is berry picking and there are museums and bus rides to Boston and New York, and there are always the friends you would never have met otherwise.

Moving everything off the boat has given us the opportunity to give the tired and shabby interior of the boat a thorough sprucing of sanding, painting and varnishing that would have been so much harder while also trying to cook, eat, sleep and school. Multiple grades of schooling had led to the accumulation of numerous weighty books and equipment that filled storage space all over the boat.

I am very much looking forward to returning to the boat with a different approach to life aboard. It is as if the first time period served as a shakedown for our return, enabling us to make changes and improvements in every aspect of our lives aboard. We will also have to adjust to the loss of two very able-bodied crew men (now university students in far-off Australia) and the changed roles and competencies of our two youngest.

Keeping in touch with cruising friends has been a vital emotional lifeline for me, and I have enjoyed being able to provide them with land based support by mailing them things they need.

Disentangling ourselves again from the kelp of land life and possessions will be the next challenge as we work out how to get ourselves all the way back across to the other side of the continent to return to the only home we own.

Whatever we do, it will continue to be on the road less travelled.

About Clare Collins

Clare and her family have been choking on the anchor amid leaf piles and snow drifts in New Hampshire USA. 

Her husband, brother, and a crew will be bringing their 72 foot steel ex-BT Challenger, Ironbarque, around the big “U” in the fall, and the family will move back on in the spring of 2016 in Maine. 

In the mean time she is working on provisioning lists and recipes to equip novice galley chefs with basic skills.

More from Clare Collins, on this website

• Fighting Fears: Taking the Plunge (Feature article)
  The account of Clare family’s quest to fulfill their dream of sailing
• Staying pink in a blue world (Blog)
• First cruising adventure: Our best and worst moments (Blog)

If chores built character, I’d be a twelve-year-old Mother Theresa. Today, on a perfect summer morning, I stood in Annie Lee’s porthole-less gloom washing last night’s marinara from ...Read more]]> Author Ann Lee Miller shares an excerpt from her memoir, Boat Days, due out in 2015 about growing up on a yawl.

Photo by Kristianne Koch

If chores built character, I’d be a twelve-year-old Mother Theresa. Today, on a perfect summer morning, I stood in Annie Lee’s porthole-less gloom washing last night’s marinara from Mom’s sailboat emblazoned Melmac.

Fish bones floated in the dying suds, making me shudder. Picking bones out of spaghetti was wrong on so many levels.

Six-year-old R.J. had found something more interesting to do than dry dishes. Dad puttered above deck. Mom slept off her hospital night shift in the bow. The boat echoed quiet—always. Sometimes I wished Mom and Dad would yell at each other like the hotheads on the rundown cabin cruiser next door.

My bargained-for freedom – Photo by Kristianne Koch

I bargained for my freedom by promising Dad I’d wash down the cockpit after lunch.

Matt and Kate Canfield, eight and nine, and I left our little brothers lying on their bellies peering over the edge of the dock at a blowfish inflating like a speckled balloon. We climbed down the Pier 1 ladder, sneakers clenched in our teeth by the laces, into the bay.

We treaded water, looked both ways, and darted into the channel.

A marine engine gunned a couple piers over, and I scrabbled faster with my three appendage stroke, shoes aloft in one hand.

No Wake signs were posted at the end of our pier, but boats barreled through the marina channel at high speeds a dozen times a day. I glanced back at Pier 1 to see if our parents stood on the T of Pier 1 drinking coffee and chatting, ready to shake their fists at law breakers, but no luck.

My shoes felt like they weighed ten pounds, and my breath sucked in and out of my throat.

Kate and Matt matched my snaggled crawl.

A Checkmate powered toward us, looming twice as big as it looked from the dock.

 “Oh, crap,” Matt panted.

 “Hey! Don’t run us over!” Kate hollered.

 The rumble of the engine drowned out her voice.

 We swam for all we were worth.

We swam for all we were worth – Photo by Kristianne Koch

The pilot saw us, cut the engine to a crawl. “Are you kids crazy? I coulda killed you.”

Lucky for the pilot we were winded, or Matt would have had choice words to say about his speed.

We touched bottom and hauled ourselves, chests heaving, onto the beach.- Photo by Kristianne Koch

We touched bottom and hauled ourselves, chests heaving, onto the beach. We brushed sand from our feet and donned our semi-dry tennis shoes while spitting out smart-mouthed retorts we should have said to the speedboat driver.

Matt unrolled a soggy notebook paper map of the portion of the island we’d explored last time—which wasn’t much. Two steps off the beach, we’d yelped and yanked sand spurs from our feet—thus the extreme effort to transport shoes today. Kate must not have minded the sand spurs since she grew up to be an acupuncturist.

We hiked into the scraggly trees, Kate in the lead, as usual, even though I was three years older. As an adult, I still happily traipse after Kate.

We hiked through underbrush, so pristine and scratchy on our shins, we were sure no man had ever gone before us. At the tip of the island, wind gusted our salt-stiffened hair against our faces—raising squawks of surprise from me and Kate.

Matt’s summer-shaggy head bent over a perfectly preserved fish skeleton. “Duh. Why do you think they call it Windbreak Island?” He’d go on to earn three master’s degrees.

We harrumphed and marched down the beach on other side of the island, Kate scooping up half a conch shell and rubbing her thumb over the smooth, pink underbelly.

I bent to pick up a piece of blue glass, admiring how the sun warmed it green—the dank quiet of the Annie Lee seemed far away.

“Look! Another island!” Kate shouted.

Matt came up beside us, his fish skeleton forgotten.

The three of us stared, open-mouthed—like Columbus sighting the New World—at the second island snugged behind Windbreak Island.

A ribbon of light water stretched between the islands as though they held hands. It took my brain a second to recall from multiple sailing aground experiences that light color meant shallows. “A sand bar!”

Matt tore past me, his legs pumping as fast as he could make them go.

Kate and I took off after him.

I chased Matt across the sandbar – Photo by Kristianne Koch

Matt careened across the sandbar, high-stepping through calf-deep water until it sloshed above his knees and he face-planted in the surf. He righted himself, and pressed on until he made virgin soil. He turned and faced us, chest puffed out, grinning.

Kate and I sloshed up and collapsed under a tree.

Matt was all for exploring the new land, but Kate and I smacked at the sand fleas munching on our skin and voted for home, food, and a long list of necessities for our next trip—by dinghy.

We waded back across the sandbar, our shoes heavy with grainy silt and water.

Sun fried us from above and reflected up in white rods from the water till it burned fleshy orange through our eyelids.

Kate and I stepped into the brush at the narrow belly of Windbreak Island.

Matt stopped to poke a bug-brown horseshoe crab the size of one of Mom’s Melmac plates.

My stomach growled. “Hurry up!”

Matt ignored me.

Kate and I trudged onto our beach, deciding to swim back to the pier in our shoes.

“Let’s go,” Kate said as Matt appeared.

“Wait!” Matt dug furiously, flinging sand through his legs like Deliah, their English bulldog. “I have to bury my treasure.”

In went his sinister horseshoe shell, Kate’s conch piece, and my blue bottle chunk.

The three of us dropped to our knees and pushed sand over the hole—one of a thousand moments that cemented us like cousins for life.

Matt marked the spot with a stick, hatted by a crumpled Michelob can.

Burying my treasure – Photo by Kristianne Koch

 We slumped into the cool green arms of the water, looked both ways and swam for our lunch.

About Ann Lee Miller

Ann earned a BA in creative writing from Ashland (OH) University and writes full-time in Phoenix. Over 100,000 copies of her debut novel, Kicking Eternity, have been downloaded from Amazon. Her other titles include Avra’s God and The Art of My Life. She guest lectures on writing at several Arizona colleges. She may be reached via Facebook or her website where she blogs on Fridays about sailing as a kid.

Ann’s novel, Tattered Innocence, is on sale in all e-formats through June 15 only for .99 at Amazon.com, BarnesAndNoble.com, and Smashwords.

Back cover:

A tale of passions indulged, denied, and ultimately forgiven: On the verge of bagging the two things he wants most—a sailing charter business and marrying old money—Jake Murray’s fiancée/sole crew member dumps him.

Salvation comes in the form of dyslexic, basketball toting Rachel Martin, the only one to apply for the first mate position he slapped on craigslist. On a dead run from an affair with a married man, Rachel’s salvation is shoving ocean between her and temptation.

Rapid fire dialogue and romantic tension sail Jake’s biker-chick of a boat through hurricanes, real and figurative. A cast of wannabe sailors, Rachel’s ex, Jake’s, a baby—go along for the ride. The many-layered story weaves together disparate strands into a seamless cord. Mother and daughter look eerily alike—down to their lusts.

Their symbiotic bond, forged in the blood of childbirth on the kitchen floor and cemented by their secrets, must be cracked open. A son must go home. Sin must be expunged. Tattered Innocence is for anyone who’s ever woken up sealed in a fifty-gallon drum of their guilt.

Read also on this website:

• Living Aboard—Same-Old-Same-Old When You’re 12, by Ann Lee Miller
• Cruising Children Speak: Cruising children tell us about their experiences growing up aboard.

The Kaufman family aboard SV Rebel Heart was rescued at sea this week when their youngest child became sick during passage from Mexico to the Pacific. This news has spawned ...Read more]]> “Let the naysayers know that there is no greater gift you can give your children than the beauty of the world.” Cruising Mom, Cidnie Carroll

The Kaufman family aboard SV Rebel Heart was rescued at sea this week when their youngest child became sick during passage from Mexico to the Pacific. This news has spawned a media frenzy with many people criticizing a life they know little about.

Cruisers have rallied behind the Kaufmans and the choice of the cruising life, and cruising families have sent Cidnie photos of their children living this unique and precious life on the sea.  Enjoy this window into the amazing life of cruising families.

• A site has been set up for those who want to help the Kaufmans:
  Help the Kaufman Family (FundRazr.com) 
• Eric and Charlotte Kaufman’s blog:
  Rebel Heart
• A podcast interview/story with the Kaufman family.
  525: Call For Help (ThisAmericanLife.org)

Want to read more about cruising families:

• When Boating With Young Children, by Rachel Lee Harris (New York Times)
• 2 Tots, a Sailboat and a Storm Over Parenting, by Jennifer Medina (New York Times)
• In Defense of Rebel Heart, Cruising Families and Choosing a Life Less Ordinary, by Jen Brett (Cruising World)
• Video: Sailing Consultant Defends Kaufman Family Rescue (Inside Edition speaks with Pam Wall)
• Raising a Child Dangerously, by Diane Selkirk (Slate.com)
• Baby On Board: Cruising with Kids and Dangerous Parenting, by Brittany Stephen-Meyers (Windtraveller blog)
• What Sailing the World with My Kids Has Taught Me About Risk, by Michele Elvy (WhatToExpect.com)
• Growing Up at Sea, by Ania Bartowiak (New York Times)
• In Support of Babes On Boats (ItsANecessity.net)
• Are we crazy? by Victoria Bradford (ForgeOver blog)
• Rebel Heart–A Reality Check (Landfall Voyages)
• Twelve Questions for Twelve Cruising Families (Women & Cruising)
• Voyaging in a boat with young children, by Emmanuelle Buecher-Hall (PDF, published in MultiHull World magazine)
• Crossing Seas with Kids, by Amy Schaefer (Sail)
• Bluewater Families: Cruising with Kids, by Patricia Zumstein (Sail)
• Cruising with Teens – Part I, by Meri Faulkner (Hotspur blog)
• Cruising Children Speak (Women & Cruising)
• Cruising Families, by Gwen Hamlin (Women & Cruising)
• A Mom looks back on the decision to go cruising as a family, by Behan Gifford (Women & Cruising)
• Debunking the Baby Myth, by Michelle Elvy (S/V Momo blog)
• Video: Kids speak their own minds about cruising (Women & Cruising)
• Elli Straus shares her logbook from her family’s year of cruising (Women & Cruising)
• Books by Cruising Children:
  – Child of the Sea: A Memoir of a Sailing Childhood, by Doina Cornell
  – Boat Girl, a Memoir of Youth, Love and Fiberglass, by Melanie Neale

Growing Up at Sea, by Ania Bartowiak (New York Times)
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/13/opinion/sunday/growing-up-at-sea.html?src=rechp&_r=1

Seeing their enthusiasm for this, we parents agreed to assign the kids a group project as part of their ...Read more]]>
During our stay in Tauranga, New Zealand, the kids from two boats (Namani and Alouette) really hit it off. One activity they particularly enjoyed was learning to program computer graphics using a program called KTurtle.

Seeing their enthusiasm for this, we parents agreed to assign the kids a group project as part of their home schooling: to create a video documentary about life on a sailboat. The idea was for our children to learn new computer skills while producing an informative and interesting video, not to mention having fun.

We thought it might take them one to two days, and they ended up taking four to produce quite a good five minute video. The video met all the requirements we set, which included a minimum length, use of different scenes / transitions / titles, as well as including a musical clip and credits. They decided that their audience would be kids who were familiar with sailing but hadn’t been cruising. The project also called on the organizational framework they usually call on for written reports: brainstorming, planning, outlining, drafting, editing, and finally, presenting their work.

As so often happens with boat kids, the three worked very well together despite only having recently met and an age range of 9-14. They worked very independently of outside guidance, taking advantage of a lounge room and power supply in the marina we were staying in while completing projects on our boat.

The assignment also met another important requirement: giving the kids something fun and interesting to do while we parents were occupied with repairs! Markus of Namani acted as tech support, but for the most part, the kids were able to figure out the home video-making program (“kdenlive”) through logic, trial, and error, and the resulting video is entirely their own work.

To follow up the assignment, each of the kids wrote a reflection on the project (what worked well, what we could have done differently, what was difficult, etc). Katie, Nicky, and William are quite proud of their work and justifiably so.

It’s great to let kids speak their own minds about cruising, and we hope that others will find their work interesting and informative.

• Watch the video on NAMANI’s website and read Nicky’s reflection on the movie-making assignment:
Boat life – the kid’s perspective
A video documentary about what it is like to live on a sailboat by Katie, William and Nicky

•  Watch the video on Vimeo:
vimeo.com/58241254

More:

• Nicky’s school projects (Nicky’s webpage on Namani’s website)

About Nadine Slavinski

Nadine Slavinski is the author of Lesson Plans Ahoy: Hands-On Learning for Sailing Children and Home Schooling Sailors.

Nadine is a sailor, teacher, and parent. She  holds a Master’s Degree in Education from Harvard University. She has been teaching in international schools since 1996.

A  lifelong sailor, she has taken two extensive sailing sabbaticals with  her husband and young son. Living aboard their 35 foot sloop Namani  for three years, the family sailed from the Mediterranean to Maine, and later,  from Maine to the Caribbean and across the Pacific.

Articles by Nadine Slavinski have appeared in various sailing magazines and websites, including Cruising World, Blue Water Sailing, Caribbean Compass, and YachtPals. Her website, www.sailkidsed.net lists many free resources for home schooling sailors.

Lesson Plans Ahoy (Second Edition) is available from:
- amazon.com (Printand Kindleedition)
- and CreateSpace.com 
For details check www.sailkidsed.net.

More from this website

• Cruising children speak: Cruising children tell us about their experiences growing up aboard
• 6 Tips for home-schooling sailors, by Nadine Slavinski
• Nadine Slavinski answers 12 questions on sailing as a family aboard NAMANI

Back after a year’s cruise, her log book entries vividly bring back the reality of cruising.  Part 1 of this 2-part post was published on Oct ...Read more]]> Elli wrote us to say thanks for all the support and inspiration she has received from Women and Cruising, and from our 12 Sailing Families.

Back after a year’s cruise, her log book entries vividly bring back the reality of cruising.  Part 1 of this 2-part post was published on Oct 14.

6. “Orlando Bloom Sand!”, aka Sandy Cay – Exumas ‘We have something special planned for the girls today… Just 15 miles from Georgetown rests a tiny island called Sandy Cay (also White Cay in some charts). Most of the island is underwater at high tide. At low tide however, the water recedes to reveal a stunning expanse of pristine white sand beach. It is here that Gore Verbinsky, the director of the Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy shot a favorite scene from the trilogy’s second movie. Movie’s soundtrack in the CD player, we turn on the engine and glide out of Elizabeth harbour…’

7. Sandy Cay – Exumas ‘I walk on deck, mug of steaming coffee in hand, a little before 6:30am.  Off our bow, a sweeping expanse of white sand beach… Silhouetted against the blue sky ready to erupt with the day’s first light, scatterings of palm and indigenous casuarina trees, so perfectly placed they appear painted on the landscape. I gingerly place bare feet on starboard deck moist with morning dew, and grab the lifelines with one hand, mug of coffee still in the other.  Something in the clear turquoise water catches my eye but it quickly swims away before I can identify it. I sit on deck, close my eyes, and listen. It doesn’t happen often on a trip like this, so when it does it’s nothing short of a symphony of music to the ears.  What sounds like hundreds, perhaps thousands of birds are heralding the beginning of another glorious day in the Bahamian out islands.  Eyes still closed, I move with the boat’s gentle swaying, now also aware of the waves gently lapping at the white sand just a few feet off our bow. I am all at once acutely aware of how much I will miss mornings like these once back on land and am saddened by the thought that we are already heading home. I open my eyes as the sun’s first rays peek through the casuarinas and warm my face. Below deck, David and the girls are still asleep and part of me wants to rouse them, to share this moment with them, to show them what they’re missing.  I don’t.  I close my eyes again, letting the sun’s rays wash over me and privately, peacefully, selfishly, savor the moment.’

8. Warderick Wells Mooring Field – Exuma Cays Land & Sea Park Headquarters ‘We radio the park office, receive our mooring assignment, and proceed into the stunning mooring field, carefully following the band of darker blue water arching into the protected crystalline lagoon. The site is stunning the second time around. Today there is not a breath of wind in the protected mooring field and we can easily distinguish sea grasses, small coral heads, bigger fish and positively enormous rays casually swimming in the pristine waters surrounding our boat. I am momentarily distracted by the indescribable beauty that surrounds us but my eyes are still trained on mooring ball number 7, boat hook at the ready, as David glides Wind of Peace closer and closer…’

Read also on this website

• Part 1 of this post: Elli shares her thanks and logbook from her family’s year of cruising (Part 1)
• 12 Questions to 12 Sailing Families

Want to help other families get out cruising ?

Share YOUR experience
with Women and Cruising readers!

Email kathy@forcruisers.com or leave a comment below.