We Made Vanity Fair

 

I'm used to writing about other people and, at times, ourselves but being the person who is written about is a new experience. Several weeks ago I had a wonderful conversation with Greta Privitera a writer from Vanity Fair Italy. While writers and reporters in the US were up in arms over the rescue of Rebel Heart (I was interviewed for both radio and TV and felt like I needed to defend our lifestyle) Greta was simply curious about how we made our dream come true.

Six-year-old sailor

It was a lovely and refreshing conversation. I'm not sure if it was cultural--but her concern wasn't for Maia's safety, but for Maia's own dreams and happiness. How do we know boating is still the right thing for her as she grows and changes?

life aboard

I don't speak Italian and google translate is a very imperfect thing, but the parts of the story that I could read made this whole cruising thing sound incredibly cool. I sort of love Italian us:

"Quando Diane parla della sua scelta di vita, l’opinione pubblica si spacca in due: «Che famiglia fortunata» e «Ma siete pazzi?».
Diane Selkirk e suo marito, due canadesi di Vancouver, sono quel tipo di persone che come tutti avevano un sogno, ma che come quasi nessuno hanno scelto di seguirlo. Sognavano di prendere una barca e girare il mondo, e l’hanno fatto: Messico, Costa Rica e Nicaragua, Salvador, Australia, Polinesia Francese, Stati Uniti.
Hanno solcato gli oceani in lungo e in largo, prima come coppia e poi come trio, con Maya, la loro bambina. Questa scelta di vita, e quella di altre 10 mila famiglie che in questo momento si trovano per mare, fa discutere l'opinione pubblica."

pin the sailboat on the voyage--dreams of a circumnavigation

Nineteen days without seeing land. "You would think" what a bore. " Not so. Every evening, on our catamaran, is a party. We cook special things, dance under the light of the stars and read together. In our travels we have seen thousands of whales, dolphins, sharks. We made all kinds of adventures and met people from every continent. We feel as if we are living in a 5 lives. It's a priceless feeling. "

Countdown to Departure

Our beautiful home--for one more month

It’s official, our time in Brisbane is coming to an end. In four short weeks we’ll be untying the lines for the last time and motoring our way down the Brisbane River into Moreton Bay. Or plan is to sail north to the Whitsundays and skirt along inside the reef to Cairns and then on to Darwin. If all goes as planned we’ll make it to Darwin before August 23 and join the Darwin to Ambon, Indonesia rally. If not we’ll get to Ambon on our own time.

Sail maintenance--and Charlie doing his bit

Getting ready has gradually become more real. We’ve been to the travel clinic to update our typhoid shots and to get jabs for rabies. We’ve bought Permethrin for treating our mossie screens and updated our safety equipment and medical kit. Evan’s to-do list is down to its final few items and his job is wrapping up in two weeks. Meanwhile Maia is in her last term of circus and school; she’s got new shoes (to grow into) and a stack of new school text books. I’ve been downloading podcasts, comparison shopping for maple syrup, buying tinned butter and trying to decide how much kitty litter we’ll need.

And that’s the easy part.

Taking a couple of Maia's friends for a weekend sail

The tough part is saying goodbye. Over the past 2.5 years we’ve fallen in love with our little city and it’s sad to think our time here is coming to an end. We’ve made friends we hope to keep—even when we’re far away. We’ve added Aussie lingo to our speech and Aussie memories to our ‘best moments’. We watched Maia and her friends grow from young girls to young teens.

Saying goodbye is the hardest part of cruising. It’s more difficult than all the bad weather and bad moments put together. In the weeks to come we’ll start to look forward and dream about what’s next. But for a while longer we’ll soak up the things we love about this place we landed by chance: the little school that made us feel at home, the circus that fed Maia’s dreams, our river community where there’s always a friendly smile, our neighbourhood park which is filled with wondrous creatures.

We’ve been lucky to call many places home and many people friends. And as we break our hearts a little with this goodbye, I have to recall that taking the time to ‘get to know and be part of’ was the whole point of our slow journey around the globe.

Adventure vs Danger

When kids are involved we choose safety over danger--but I wonder if we lose the adventure? (Newborn Hector's Dolphin btw)

With the recent hubbub over how dangerous it is to take kids blue water sailing I’ve been reflecting on how SAFE sailing is these days. Absolutely sailors run into trouble out there now and again. But I think it’s the relative safety of it; the fact that most of us only lose the odd rudder, blow the occasional sail, lose a mast now and again, and rarely run into unanticipated storms, that highlights how different it used to be.

Technology has made it really easy for new sailors to become seasoned sailors without ever going through anything challenging. We’ve had friends sail around the entire world without hitting bad weather. The entire world. Which, by the way, is how I’m hoping to do it…

Maia dreams of having adventures like Cook did but worries they've all been used up

Contrast that to sailors who did the same trip 20+ years ago (pre technology such as GPS chartplotters, satphones, AIS, EPIRBs etc). Back then it was pretty rare not to have something go wrong and usually it was a whole lot of things. And as I was listening to a fabulous interview on ABC in Australia, by former boat kid Glenn MacFadyen about his childhood trip that included nearly starving, two shipwrecks and imprisonment in Africa (he characterized it all as exciting…) I realized we’ve become so risk adverse that we even want our adventures to be safe.

My heroes have always been adventures. And a large part of their appeal was how they coped with adversity. I love hearing tales about people who have gone through the toughest of moments and emerged triumphant after patching together damaged boats and dampened spirits. I love the fearlessness of it all—the idea that when the wind howls you roar back.

How safe should life be?

I think the whole Huck Finn aspect of cruising is what first drew me to it and made me want to share it with Maia. And as we add yet another piece of safety equipment (this time an uber cool MOB radio that allows us to zero in on someone who’s fallen overboard) I question just how safe we can make living before we’ve squeezed the life out of it.

Land Ho

Hotspur in the Sea of Cortez

Not ours sadly. As appealing as it is would be we, haven’t slipped the lines and set off for somewhere new. But we have had the privilege of following our dear friends Jim, Meri and Carolyne aboard Hotspur as they crossed the Pacific toward the Marquesas.

 

We miss this lovely family and hope they have a blast in the pacific

Evan provided them with weather routing and as seasoned shellbacks (ha!) Maia and I emailed them with tidbits of information and encouragement. Reading their emails and blog posts brought back a lot of memories of our own crossing three years ago. One thing that felt familiar was their initial unease followed by a palpable joy and excitement as they found their rhythm and discovered just what a wondrous experience crossing an ocean is.

It’s not always easy—like us they had their fair share of breakdowns and testing moments. But I think joy comes from not being knocked out by them—by reaching down through the fear and frustration and discovering you really can make it to port on a broken rudder (us) or that you have the skills to fix an autopilot without directions, several times (them). The fun also comes from being a family out there—you’re together, alone in the middle of the ocean, every minute of everyday, and somehow sometime after you arrive and the world gets busy again, it feels like it may not have been enough.

It might be a long way to come for a play date--but Maia hopes they catch us somewhere

I’m excited and envious for the hours, weeks and months that Jim, Meri and Carolyne have coming up. Making landfall can only be described as magical. Despite our modern technology: the radios, GPS, heck, the charts(!) it still feels like you’ve reached back through the centuries and crossed wakes with the navigators when you sight land.

It’s not often you get to sail into your dreams and live them full on. As I picture them making landfall I can smell the floral sweet tiaré mingled with warm heavy jungle; I can hear the drums back in the hills and kids laughing on shore; And I can recall my own giddy excitement as I stepped on land after several weeks at sea only to have my legs wobble as though they were giggling in glee.

 

Landfall Bora Bora

To celebrate their accomplishment I’ve been playing sailing music and dreaming about our next landfall, wherever it may be.

Easter Traditions

Our Easter tradition-for now

They say with kids that if you celebrate the same holiday the same way twice, it’s a tradition. With boat kids, and a nomadic lifestyle, doing anything the same way twice is a feat. And doing it three times is unheard of.

Before we left we tried to streamline our core holiday traditions so that they’d be easy to replicate anywhere. What we never took into account is just how unpredictable ‘anywhere’ can be. Seasonal holidays don’t work that well for distance sailors. For one—our seasons tend to by ruled by cyclone and hurricane seasons—which is why many an Easter and Christmas are spent at sea. And if you travel far enough, the seasons are upside down: favourite dishes aren’t as tasty in the heat (if you can even find the ingredients) and even hiding Easter eggs is a challenge in high temperatures (sandy, melted chocolate anyone?)

 

Ceildyh and Mangoe -- anchored together again after 17 years

This year though was our third Easter spent out in the islands of Moreton Bay. Each year the effort has become more casual—the first included a big land-based Easter egg hunt and fancy dinner (bless power boats with air con). Last year we moved the Easter egg hunt to Ceilydh’s foredeck and timed our dinner with Convivia to coincide with a big-as thunder squall.

This year, with a busy schedule leading up to Easter, I was happy to throw a few chocolate eggs and groceries into the boat before heading head out. And after an evening of catching up with our friends on SV Mangoe (little SV Ceilydh and Mangoe were last together in the La Cruz anchorage in 1997—how cool is that?) the kids all curled up to sleep in the nets and the Easter Bunny made an appearance sometime before dawn.

 

watch out Easter Bunny

Some time after the Easter Bunny arrived, but before the kids woke, Charlie the cat realized we had been boarded and was concerned for the kids. So the brave kitty attacked Maia’s treats and knocked them overboard. I think this could make a cool Easter tradition but Maia disagreed. Fortunately I had chocolate eggs on hand for our now tradtional foredeck hunt.

Hunting for eggs--before they melt

See those pink spots? Those are the kids...

 Then after a day of snorkeling and sandsurfing—we convened on the foredeck and celebrated Easter supper with a not so traditional meal of home made carnitas and pakoras.

Parenting Dangerously aka The Kids are Alright

 If you missed the news of our friends on Rebel Heart being rescued at sea and losing their boat (it’s kind of been everywhere in the news—but we do have friends who are pretty remote…) their misfortune created a firestorm.

Once it was clear the family was safe, the judgements and comments started. It’s odd having your life picked apart by the masses and I was asked to respond in a story for Slate. Slate isn’t known for having the kindest comments section and this morning as I read through them with Maia (hey, it’s her childhood people are arguing about…) we started noticing that in amongst the hundreds and hundreds of annoying comments there was also understanding, support and some really excellent questions.

The questions and concerns come in two forms. The first are about Charlotte and Eric specifically: Were they experienced enough? Were they prepared to parent under the conditions they found themselves in? Was this trip wrong for their family?

I can’t answer those. We opted to wait until Maia was older for a variety of our own reasons but we know many families who safely crossed oceans with less experience or with younger children.

 

Arriving in the Marquesas

The more general question: is cruising with kids okay? This is the one I answered whole heartedly and with a resounding, Yes. For us. And then people wanted know the nitty gritty:

 

School seems to be going fine: she loves learning and is a keen student

Are we and other cruising families living on trust funds? Because how the heck do we afford to sail the world.

Not rich. Most of us are lucky. We’re lucky in that we had a dream and we had the type of jobs (or found the type) that let us work remotely, or in other countries. We also tend to be a really frugal lot, living on a fraction of what middle class Americans live on. In some cases families we know sold or rented out their homes. But most of us skipped buying homes and cars, took cheap (usually boat-oriented) vacations, got good at thrifting and used all the money we saved to buy a boat instead. Then we set a deadline and saved and saved and saved. When we arrived in Australia our bank account was down to fumes. It was huge risk and Evan was lucky to find a job. Our alternative would have been to sell the boat and head home.

Is Maia lonely?

She’s had moments of loneliness and short stretches of travel when there weren’t that many other kids around. Our 19 day passage was just the three of us—but we all enjoyed the time together. For the most part we seek out other kid boats and have always had at least one and as many as 20 + other families around. We tend to travel slowly—mostly for this reason. This gives us the flexibility to spend month and months with other families and have been fortunate to encounter some of the same kids year after year. She also makes an effort to meet local people and has forged an ongoing friendship with one young woman from Fiji.

Is Maia weird? Because I met someone once who was dragged to sea by their parents and they are weird.

So far she seems pretty normal. But I asked her what she thought. She thinks she’s okay. Then we talked about all the boat kids she’s known, past and present. Some are weird. Mostly this applied to the boys when she was younger though. Some are the coolest people she knows. Some are sort of ordinary. She’s says what’s really interesting about them is how easygoing most of them are. They tend to be friendly, helpful, non-judgemental and strongly individual and independent. Some are super smart and excel at school, some are musical or artistic others are funny.

How do you educate her?

Right now she's in public school in Australia and seems to be holding her own with no trouble after 3 years of homeschooling. We use a really wide variety of resources to educate her though and do tend to hold her to a schedule.After breakfast has generally been the time for all of us to work--wrapping up at lunch to head out and explore. Depending on the heat and weather, we reverse that. 

You are white and speak English. Are you all a bunch of rich white people going to look at poor brown people? And cruising is a creepy name.

Yes, we are white. If it helps you feel better about our little microcosm of the world we crossed with a Jewish family and sailed for a while with a Korean woman. We even know gay people. Sheesh. Offshore sailors do tend to come from a few core countries: Canada, the US, England, Australia, New Zealand, Germany, France and South Africa. Some of that list speaks English, some not so much. The fascinating thing has been to watch sailing diversify--I correspond with a Russian sailing group, and we've met cruising boats from Vanuatu, Mexico, Japan, Jamaica, Portugal and many, many more. As more international sailors get out, and share their experience, the mix will become even more interesting.
As far as who we encounter when we cruise--it's sort of a geographic thing. The tropics tend to be home to people with darker skin. When we sailed up to Alaska we met First Nations people and fishermen. If we get to Norway I think we'll meet Norwegians.

Cruising does sound weird. I’ve never loved the term, too easy to misconstrue. We ran into trouble using ‘boat people’ when we arrived in Australia though. If you have a better phrase to describe us, bring it on…

What about sun damage, lack of pop culture and sharks?

We dip her in sunscreen. Seriously. And she has a huge hat collection. She’s had 2-3 mild sunburns since we left.

Maia is a huge Dr Who (the modern version even) and Sherlock fan and she’s going to her first concert in a few weeks: Lorde. So I while she doesn’t know what’s on TV in North America and isn’t up to date on the latest crazes, the good stuff tends to percolate to the top and she finds it.

She likes sharks. They are a sign of a healthy reef. The kind of sharks she sees are reef sharks which are pretty mellow and a few other exotics like tasselled wobbegongs. She knows enough about shark behaviour to judge if one is getting territorial—it’s a lot like interacting with an unfamiliar dog.

Why should tax payers pay to rescue you if you get into trouble?

Many people have written about the importance of a tax-funded rescue system. So I won’t. I don’t think subjecting an emergency to a means test is feasible unless there is clear rule breaking involved (I.E. heading into an out of bounds area) otherwise how do we do it? It’s hard to say if someone was 50% stupid, 25% unlucky and 25% ill-prepared or just 100% did the best they could in the situation they found themselves in.

Every cruiser knows if you call for help you’re likely going to lose your home and all your possessions. The rescue itself can also be hazardous as hell. This doesn’t even take into account the fact that outside of major developed countries there’s no one there to rescue you. This is why most of us work so hard to be safe and self-sufficient. It’s also why there is such a strong code of the sea. We look out for each other. Dangerous, incompetent sailors are a bigger risk to me and my family than they are to taxpayers. So as a community we share information, we offer assistance, we teach each other. And if something goes wrong we shut the heck up and help. Afterwards, we pick apart each and every accident, but not as a means to point fingers and lay blame. We do it to learn.

Our Wild Life

I don’t know if it was the possum in the shower or the ducks at our door that made me realize it, but despite living on the edge of a big city we’re still firmly linked to the wild world around us.

 

we don't take cameras in the shower normally (though we may start) but this is a water dragon.

For the record, possums are not normally found in our shower. Nor are water dragons…
(Though enormous freaky spiders are…) But both creatures somehow showed up in the shower stalls in recent weeks and needed to be caught and released. The water dragon was first. Looking like a squirrel (except we don’t have squirrels…) in the dim corner of the shower it scurried away (and right into Maia) when I tried to get a closer look (actually, when I screeched…).

We chased it for a bit and realized there was no way it could get back out the vent, where it had most likely come in from, without assistance. So we decided to catch it and set it free. Water dragons bite—we’ve seen them tussle with the ibis in the park and the giant birds don’t win. But this one was little and it seemed very sad about being chased around the shower so after cornering him, and promising we were there to help, I grabbed him behind his shoulders and set him back out into the wild.

 

typically this is about all we see of a possum

Possums are much bigger than water dragons. And Maia found the possum just after getting over the water dragon, when she was finally willing to go to the showers alone again. She quickly came back out and told Saskia, who told Zack (another boater). So the trio decided that the possum would be happier if he wasn’t in the shower and successfully rescued the old guy and set him free. And Maia decided she shower some other day…

But between the creatures and the fact our shower is flood-prone, and often looks like a bio-hazard, Maia doesn’t really want to bathe anymore, ever. It brings back a memory of traveling down the US west coast. Expect with more creatures…

 

our handsome neighbour

Not all our interactions with the wildlife are unsettling though—we have a huge pelican for a neighbour, and the kookaburras to wake us, and Maia has a gaggle of ducks who have been visiting her since they were ducklings. Initially they’d wait patiently outside the boat for her. But then they learned to climb aboard the dinghy so they could quack through a window for her. Most recently they’ve been climbing aboard and waddling up to the door. We’re not sure if it’s because she’s been slow to respond to their visits or if they are tired of competing with the catfish for the food Maia gives them.

Yesterday when Maia fed her ducks the catfish rushed the surface, bit the duck's foot and held on. Okay, so maybe we’re not in the midst of an exotic sailing adventure but you’ve got to admit its all pretty wild.

Our resident flying foxes

The Great Pumpkin in Oz

If you asked Maia, she’d tell you Halloween is the hardest holiday to be away from home for. It’s the one night of the year (plus the week or two leading up to it) where you can delve into your imagination and become anything you like. Then, with your alternate persona firmly in place, you head out into the spooky streets en mass and find what’s out there beyond your normal boundaries. The discoveries are quite splendid: I recall learning things like where that cute boy at school lived, that a favourite teacher had just moved down the road (and she had a husband!), and that the forbidding lady on the corner was actually really nice.

 

The first pumpkin the kids had ever carved.

Last year's pumpkin came with a safety briefing.This year we got printed directions.

Here, Halloween isn’t quite like that. The celebration is occurring, but on a smaller level, despite Aussies holding a few misconceptions about the day. The belief that it’s an American day of excess and commercialization, which is rooted in evil and gore, is hard to shake. And it’s kind of hard to sell an evening where kids dress in black and go begging lollies off strangers.

 

Getting ready is the same in any country.

It’s not surprising, I guess. If my only exposure to Halloween was through movies and TV I’d know nothing of the feeling of the holiday. It’s kind of hard to describe to people what’s it’s like to take to the streets of your neighbourhood in disguise; the excitement of passing each other in the dark, trying to sort out who you’re seeing while being disoriented by fireworks and scary displays; the fun of being warmly welcomed by neighbours you normally only see at a distance and getting to peak in through their front doors…

 

Memories of home.

An effort to bring the fun here: witches fingers and a pumpkin cheese ball.

So for my Aussie friends who asked: Halloween’s roots are found in the Gaelic harvest festival of Samhaim and the Christian festival of All Hallow’s Eve. The traditions, like everything in North America, are a mash-up of cultures and ideas (Maia used to get treats that ran the gamut from Japanese rice sweets, to Turkish delights to Latin American sugared skulls). Trick-or-treating is reminiscent of souling (where kids went door to door for soul cakes) and the symbols (carved pumpkins, apples, spooky skeletons) reflect the season’s transition to the darker months of the year. After that, it’s refining the details. Costumes can be spooky or aspirational (Halloween isn’t a theme…) and the more creative the better. Socializing is important but spending a fortune is not.

Our Halloweens in Oz have been spoockacularly charming small-scale versions of the holiday at home. The stores aren’t filled with elaborate costumes (they’re overflowing with Christmas stuff instead…) so most kids wear simple DIY efforts. Pumpkins are imported and very expensive, so decorations are DIY as well. Urban myths of poisoned Halloween treats (which never actually happened) have never reached Oz, so kids happily accept unwrapped lollies, or eat a chunk of chocolate offered at the door (less plastic waste). And because only a handful of people participate—the kids do a lot of walking to earn their treats.

But the feeling? It turns out that’s the same. The kids dress too soon and then jitter with anticipation while they wait for it to get dark so they can head out. And once they’re out it’s just pure fun.