Captain's Log

Spring in the Northeast, where we are based, is the migration season. It is always fun to see the boats that have come up the Intracoastal Waterway from the south or made landfall from the Caribbean stop in Newport for a few days. These wandering sailors are the heart and soul of the cruising community, and they are always upbeat, full of life and enthusiastic about the places they have been, the people they have met and the sailing adventures they have had. Living the cruising life is really living life in full Technicolor.

Special among the migrating fleet are the boats sailed by families. We enjoy watching a seagoing boat come into the anchorage with the children manning the sails, prepping the anchor and helping to con the boat into the harbor. These smaller sailors always seem to be full partners in the business of working the boat. They are handy, slim, tanned and, like their older counterparts, full of the pleasures of the seagoing life.

We are lucky enough to have spent five years with our family-- parents and two sons--sailing around the world. We home schooled, lived for extended periods in foreign countries and had all the adventures we dreamed of before setting out. Certainly, the cruising life is not what most people call "normal." And we are often asked how five years of seafaring affected our young boys who were growing into their teen years. Was being not normal okay? It is not really for us to say, although we are a close family with shared memories that are fun, unique and will last us our lifetimes.

Other families who have sailed long and far together seem to have similar experiences. Steve and Linda Dashew took their young daughters on a long trip around the world. Today they are all in business together, in book publishing, music and other enterprises. You can catch up with the Dashews on their website www.setsail.com.

Jimmy and Gwenda Cornell took their son and daughter around the world and today are working together with them on a number of projects and businesses, including their wonderful cruising website www.noonsite.com.

We can cite many other examples, yet the stories all seem to have the same ring. Families that sail together develop a special bond. Parents and children have undertaken adventures that are unknown to most of their peers and have made successes of them. The children become full partners aboard a voyaging boat and must shoulder serious responsibilities at young ages.

Standing a night watch while the family sleeps below gives a young person a real and tangible knowledge of what vigilance, care and caution are all about. Meeting the natives of foreign lands, haggling with vendors in markets, attending foreign schools, all broaden a young person's mind and show them how life is lead outside the bubble of the shopping mall or the local high school.

It is no wonder cruising families sail together and then stay together. They are coconspirators in one of life's great adventures. They have lived through a lot together and worked as a team. They have lived a portion of their lives being entirely self-reliant.

That is why those kids on the bows of the migrating boats always wave, always meet you with a smile and always have a great yarn to spin about the wonders of the world they are exploring.

It is not the life for every family. But if you can do it, we can only say "Go." You will never regret it.

Fair winds,