Why This Trip

In some ways, the seed for this trip was laid in 1980, when Deb was traveling in Turkey with her parents. She saw a family living on a sailboat in Fethye, Turkey, and said to herself, “someday I’d like to do that with my kids”. The second birth of the idea was in 1988. Shortly before we were married, we looked at the career choices we were making, the high pressure jobs we saw ourselves both headed toward, and agreed that if we had kids, we would try to find a time in our careers when we could “check out” for at least a year, to create some kind of special family experience. The adventure we are now on is the result of keeping both of those flames alive.

We began thinking seriously about a year’s sailing tip about 5 years ago. At that time, however, neither of our careers was in the right place for a break. Further, we wanted to do it when Sarah, our youngest, was old enough to be an active participant, and our oldest, Danny, was not yet into the commitments of high school. We thought there was about a three year window during which we might accomplish those two goals. Not surprisingly, we ended up hitting the last of the three.

Before we left, we heard people describe our upcoming adventure as everything from “They’re sailing around the world”, to “They’re taking a one year vacation in Europe.” Both have elements of what we’re doing, but neither reflects our goals or our plans. We actually thought a great deal about what kind of experience would be best for our family. As our ability to make this trip became clearer, we felt extremely fortunate to have the opportunity, and tried to guide our planning by getting clear about our goals for this once-in-a-lifetime year. As many people often ask us after they hear about a particular choice we’ve made “why would you do that?!”, we thought the following might be interesting.

The six primary goals we identified, and some thoughts about how they played into our planning, are as follows.

Slowing down. Probably most important was our desire to slow down, and do so as a family. In addition to our love of the water and wind, one of the reasons we were so drawn to a sailing trip is that with sailing, you MUST always remain at the whim of the weather. It’s a matter of safety. So for two type A’s and their kids, for whom slowing down may not come easy, we were attracted to a situation that would make it harder for us to unwittingly recreate what we were trying to leave behind.

Kid responsibility. We wanted to create an experience for our kids that showed them how more can be done by yourself and, frankly, teach them (and ourselves) some of the very mundane but practical life skills that come along with that. A sailboat is a uniquely qualified playing field for that kind of experience – it’s too small a space to leave things undone, and something always needs doing.

Adventure. We never considered bushwhacking in the outback, but always wanted there to be some element of adventure. Our lives at home made it easy for kids to learn to stay in their comfort zones, and we thought stretching that aspect of their thinking a little would be helpful.

These three goals, and the fact that none of our kids showed a propensity for sea sickness during our several weeks of sailing vacations in years past, had us leaning strongly toward some kind of sailing trip. The following helped tune the nature of the trip.

Broadening experiences. We really wanted to stretch the kids’ sense of the world. We thought about lots of ways to do that, and they are boundless, but kept coming back to a desire to be in Europe. This was a tough one, because sailing would have been more straightforward and in some ways more pleasant on the eastern U.S. and Caribbean. It’s got more consistent weather, a full year sailing season, fewer language barriers as we learned the world of boats, etc. There is no question that our choice to do Europe added meaningfully to the pressures that built up prior to our departure (buying a boat in Europe, etc) and some significant hassles early in our trip. But we continue to think that for our purpose, the hassles were worth it.

Non-vacation feel. As crazy as it might sound, we really didn’t want this to be simply an extended vacation. We wanted it to be an experiment with a kind of life and lifestyle that is different from what we had been living. And we wanted it to involve our doing more, not less, for ourselves, in order to meet some of the goals above.

Reasonable comfort. That said, this also was not about “roughing it”. Nothing wrong with that, but not what we were looking for. This drove some of our decisions about the kind of boat to purchase, where to spend the winter, how often we plan to leave the boat for dry land and bigger spaces, etc.

Acceptable risk. Clearly, the safety of our kids was paramount. Frankly, the sailing part wasn’t an issue, as we’re confident that, if we remain responsible, this poses little real risk. What did give us pause for concern is the state of the world and our fears about war and other acts of violence. In the end we felt equally safe on a boat in Europe as we would in densely populated and “strategically important” places in the United States. What we haven’t yet decided in this regard is where in the Eastern Med – Greece, Turkey and Croatia – we will deem sufficiently safe. That’s for next spring/summer.

Those were the drivers, as best we can articulate them, and they led us to the following basic plan:

• Timing: We left the U.S. at the end of July 2002, and plan to return in early August 2003.
• Vessel: We purchased a 1990 Amel Supermaramu sailing boat. It’s 52 feet long, and known to be very safe and easy to sail. See “our boat, our home” below for more detail on our boat.
• Itinerary: We plan to sail the eastern part of the Western Med for the first sailing season (Aug – Oct) – south of France, Sardinia, Corsica, and the northern part of Italy’s west coast. We currently plan to winter in Gaeta, a port city about half way between Rome and Naples, from about November 1 through mid-late April. We’ll live on the boat for much of that time, but will also travel/explore as much as our tolerance for each other forces us off the boat and our budget allows. Clearly plan to spend some time skiing in the Alps. Our second sailing season is still up in the air. One possibility is to sail south from Gaeta, around Italy and to some combination of Greece, Turkey and Croatia for the season – world situation permitting.
• Schooling: We brought enough books to sink a smaller boat, and will be home schooling all three kids – Danny for 8 grade, Adam for 5 and Sarah for 2. We’ll let you know how that goes, but we’re excited. Fortunately the district has been great about encouraging us not to worry too much about covering everything in the curriculum precisely, but leaving ample time to follow the path of the incredible history that will be in front of us. We also plan for all of us to do some intensive Italian for a brief period when we settle in for the winter.

So that’s the history and plans for our trip in an abbreviated nutshell. The history is pretty solid, the plans we’re sure will change along with the winds. We’ll certainly do our best to keep you posted.