Behan Gifford - Voyaging With Kids - A Guide to Family Life Afloat

Behan Gifford, Sara Dawn Johnson, Michael Robertson 2015

Print book and Cover Design Stephen Horsley, Outline Design NZ

E-Book design and completion Tim Murphy

Editor Tim Murphy

Proof reader Michelle Elvy

Index Chris Banta

Photo Credits (page numbers refer to print-book). Photographs by authors unless otherwise noted. All photos in chapter 13 appear courtesy of the former cruising kids who provided them.

Library of Congress Control Number: 2015908754

Publishers Cataloging-in-Publication

(Provided by Quality Books, Inc.)

Gifford, Behan.

Voyaging with kids : a guide to family life afloat /

Behan Gifford, Sara Dawn Johnson, Michael Robertson.

pages cm

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-1-929214-33-4

ISBN 978-1-929214-43-3 (ebook)

1. Sailboat living. 2. Family recreation.

I. Johnson, Sara Dawn. II. Robertson, Michael, 1968-

III. Title.

GV811.65.G54 2015 797.124 QBI15-600096

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form
or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including scanning, photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

L&L Pardey Publications

P.O. Box 29, Arcata, California 95518 USA

Phone: (707) 822- 9063, Fax: (707) 922-9163, Email: lpardey@xtra.co.nz

www.landlpardey.com

ISBN: 978-1-929214-33-4 Print edition

ISBN: 978-1-929214-43-3 eBook edition

Printed in USA

3 5 7 9 8 4 2

Foreword

The Goodlanders: Gary Capn Fatty, Roma Orion, and Carolyn, aboard s/v Carlotta in the 1980s

T here is only one thing I have ever done thats as fun as growing up aboard, and thats parenting aboard. A small boat on a large ocean is the perfect place to raise a child, especially in todays frantic, monetized, cyber-hyped world. You truly have time for your children, long stretches of quality time together as a family. You are physically, mentally, and spiritually close. There are few distractions, little peer pressure, and almost no shore vices to entice.

There are pivotal moments in a childs life when a single hug is worth more than a dozen Hope Diamonds. Will you be there? Will you know? Will you be able to sense that moment and realize its importance? Will you have the wisdom to stop whatever mundane thing you are doing, embrace your child, and say, I love you?

It is not easy to raise a happy, well-adjusted child in todays wildly fluxing world, but a small and loved vessel is a perfect place to do so. The entire world can be your classroom.

Our daughter, Roma Orion, learned addition and subtraction by counting her ice-cream coinage in foreign countries. While snorkeling above a pristine reef, she had a biology and oceanography lesson. She learned geology by walking along beaches and while rock climbing on headlands, geography by analyzing nautical charts, chemistry while mixing epoxy, and astronomy by taking sextant sights. If a shark swam by, we studied predators. While refueling our diesel auxiliary, we talked about what fossil fuels werehow they were made, refined, distributedand their cost to society. Our lesson plan was simple: observe, think, use your senses, discuss, interact, effect, feel, experiment, participate, and enjoy... every second of every day.

There is little need to teach religious tolerance when all your playmates pray to different gods. Racial prejudice is not an issue, either, when you live amid an international rainbow society.

Best of all, while living aboard, you can easily and consciously disconnect your family from anything and everything ashore. You, the parent, can control the physical, mental, spiritual, and cultural environment of your child 24/7, which is almost impossible in most shoreside environments.

Another plus: your child is surrounded by adults who are actively living their dream. These are people who, over the long term, have managed to translate their lofty social ideals into direct, concerted action, which has resulted in the highest quality of life they can imagine. In many cases, these are the people who have moved beyond mere money and social labels to discover true wealth and true worth. No better role models exist.

Travel, especially by sea, forces you to think and to endure. The value of tenacity becomes apparent, as does trickiness of viewpoint. Once, while clearing into a country with my daughter, I pointed to a fence and asked, Whats that, Roma?

The border, she said.

No, honey, I said. Thats where some person, or people, thinks the border should be.

Raising a kid aboard a boat isnt about minimizing the few disadvantages but rather about maximizing the many advantages. Do you want your kids to know about practical subjects such as electricity, plumbing, mechanics, electronics, woodworking, sewing, refrigeration, cooking, chemistry, metallurgy, astronomy, navigation, map-reading, solar and wind power, and basic physics? These subjects come up daily in a boat kids world. Your child will morph into more than a son or daughter; he or she will grow to become crew as well. A family is a team, and theres no better place than a sailing vessel to learn teamwork.

Our daughter could never think of women as the weaker gender after daily seeing her mother take on the same roles aboard as her father, roles that evidence equality in strength, endurance, intelligence, and wisdom. Life aboard a boat means never having to teach your daughter or son about nontraditional gender roles, not after an offshore gale during which Mom stood watch on deck and Dad cooked breakfast down below.