Radio interview

Our radio interview on ABC Tropical North was broadcast today.  It's very strange hearing a recording of yourself, but it went well and we're hoping it'll give other families food for thought.

CLICK HERE to listen.

Haven? or Hades?

T minus 8.  A week tomorrow and we will be liveaboards! Our 12 month adventure will have properly begun.  It feels strange to think that next Sunday night will be the last we sleep in our lovely house for a while.

The bed, I have to say, is a biggie.  In the house we have a very comfortable queen bed with a king size doona (quilt/duvet for those who don’t speak Strine).  This is because I married is a doona-stealer, who wraps himself up like a sausage roll given half a chance, while I am left shivering and uncovered.  So we got a king-size doona which solves the problem.  Our bed is one of those super-comfortable ones, and whenever we’ve been staying elsewhere or camping , and come home, Matt and I always sink into  our bed with sighs of relief and agree that we have the best bed in the world.

So we’re going from this:

To this:

Now to be fair, the aft cabin doesn’t usually look like this.  The bunk was originally a bit smaller than a double, and being a boat bunk, was a funny shape (including narrower at the feet end)  We ummed and ahhed about whether we should go to the trouble and expense of widening the bunk – there was plenty of floor space to widen it in to, it’s a good-sized cabin.  We had half-convinced ourselves to live with it for a few months, and see how we felt after living on board.  However, the mattress is also old and tired, and rather than replace it twice, we decided to bite the bullet and extend the bunk.  So Matt and his dad, (who is pretty handy and helped build our house), decided to get stuck in one morning on the boat.

What they didn’t count on was the bunk fighting back.  It didn’t want to come apart.  I may have mentioned before, this is one strongly-built boat.  The original builder fitted out much of the interior with wood, which in most places seems to be glued together, then the joint is reinforced with screws, then the screws are expoxied in place.  And then the whole joint is covered in epoxy, just to be sure!

While this fills me with comfort that our boat’s interior is super-strong and robust, it does mean that it’s a total pain to make any changes.

We have just over a week to go.  The house is half–packed up and every day I have a different area to clear out: store/garage sale/rubbish.  But we’re getting there.  Matt is still working 12-hour days.  He comes home in the evening to have me thrust crates of stuff under his nose: “Shall we sell this? What about this?” and gradually the rooms and cupboards are becoming wonderfully empty.  It feels like we’ll get there, in one weeks’ time the house will be packed up and pristine and ready to welcome a new family.

I’m just not so sure the boat will be ready to welcome us!  There’s plenty of room on the aft deck, maybe we’ll have a few nights of sleeping under the stars…

Fame and Fortune?

We had a lot of fun filming on Iron Will today.  ABC's daily analysis and social commentary programme "The Drum" are planning a segment on why some Aussie families choose an unconventional lifestyle, and we're going to be one of those unconventional families!

It started last week when we met some new friends the Atkinson family from the kidboat Katsumi.  Lyndy Atkinson has an awesome blog called Homeschool Ahoy, which was read by the producer of ABCs The Drum.  The Atkinson's lifestyle tied in with plans the ABC had for a piece on housing affordability, so they approached the Atkinsons to see if they'd be interested in participating.  As luck would have it, the day suggested was a day when the Atkinsons planned to be out on the water, enjoying our beautiful Whitsunday sunshine, and Lyndy asked if we'd be interested instead.

My first reaction was "Hey, why not?".  Matt's was a horrified, "No! why would I want to do that?".  Tilly's was "Mmm?  Don't mind" (returns nose to book).  Sasha's: "Yee-haaaah!!!"

Shy retiring type

So we got in touch with the producer (who was quite lovely) and put out names forward, and sent her the details of the blog for background.  Lyndy had also put it out to the great "Liveaboard Sailing Families Australia" Facebook group so there were a few other families who put their hands up too.  We heard nothing for a few days, then two days ago they got in touch and said they'd be coming to film us today, Wednesday.  Much excitement - and trepidation!

We needn't have worried.  The two journalists were super friendly, genuine and down to earth.  They rocked up at the house with their camera, recording equipment and what seemed like a zillion tripods in various sizes.  They ran through what they wanted to do - get lots of filling shots and footage of the house, kids playing, us packing, us leaving and us driving off - before we'd go to the marina and get more of the same on the boat.

We ran through all the stuff pretty quickly.  They noticed our huge world map wall and, when we told them that we'd built our house around it, they wanted one us to talk about it to camera.  And guess who jumped in first? Mr I-Don't-Want-To-Be-Filmed put his hand up - Pick me! Mike me up!  And he was great!

Once we had all that covered, we hopped in the car and headed down to the marina.  They wanted footage of the boat, us loading the boat, Matt tinkering, me tinkering, kids playing (Tilly reading!) and then I did a piece to camera explaining the accomodation down below.  I did find it a bit nerve-wracking, and Matt gleefully pointed out that I said "um ..." a lot! The presenter/journo then did the sit-down interview with me and Matt around the saloon table; I felt very stiff to start with and Matt and  were careful not to talk over each other.  As the interview went on we both relaxed and by the end were talking almost normally!

We loved the whole day, but I'm sure a lot of that was really down to being in such capable hands. It was a great chance to articulate that if a mainstream lifestyle doesn't feel right, you can try something else.  We do feel quite passionate about what we're doing; that the liveaboard lifestyle isn't just the preserve of the wealthy; that if your life feels very small, you can take small brave steps to open it up; that consumerism is a creeping horror; that life can be slowed; and that connecting with your tribe and being in nature are balm to the soul.



The segment is due to be aired on Friday 14th July 2017 in Australia at 5.30pm on ABC1 and 6.30pm on AC News 24.  It may also be used for a radio piece on ABC Tropical North the following week, possibly an online article and we're hoping to catch up with them again further down the track.  We had a great time, thanks guys!

More setbacks

Matt and I both know that pretty much anything to do with boats gets delayed, takes longer and costs more than you expect.   So we  were  annoyed – but not surprised – when the boatyard called this week to say we weren’t being hauled out next week as arranged. 

Hope we get this many helpers

The yard lady was apologetic but adamant, and duly noted Matt’s reasons why we were so keen not to lose out spot: we had a surveyor arranged for the Monday as soon as the boat was on the hard,  Matt had taken leave from work to get the boat scrubbed and painted in the allotted 4 days, we currently still have an alternative place to live (which we won’t very soon) and, most important, his dad and mum were driving the 10 hours from Hervey Bay to help us that week!

Apparently this is happening all the time at the moment; people are being bumped and schedules being hastily rearranged.  Cyclone Debbie has a lot to answer for.  There are mutterings of unscrupulous owners stretching things out while on the insurers coin, but I can’t see how; surely insurers are even more careful with their money that the rest of us?  Anyway, I offered to phone the yard and add my two-penn'orth, but Matt hastily declined.  Hmm, not sure why!  So next week we suddenly have a whole 4 days stretching ahead of us with, luxuriously, nothing to fill it.   Of course, we have plenty to fill it, and jobs have rushed in to fill the vacuum, but it gave a brief illusion of breathing space. 

The most important of these is to finish packing up the house.  We currently have an awful lot of cardboard packing boxes around the house (mainly in places where you fall over them at night).  These boxes are split into 3 categories, stuff to give to Vinnies (St Vincent de Paul Charity Shop), slightly better items to sell at our garage sale in a couple of weeks, and finally, stuff to store.  So that if/when we come back in 12 months, we don’t have to start totally from scratch.  This last category is piling up as we have nowhere to store them.  The plan is that Matt will partition off part of of our 4-bay shed so we can use one bay for storage, and hopefully this is something he and his dad can do next week.  Then we can get the boxes out of the house, and move from room to room in a direct line and without navigating a waist-high cardboard maze.

Our packing up has been further delayed by the fact that I’ve been working.  I work occasionally as a casual in our two local libraries.  Sometimes it’s extremely busy and we’re rushed off our feet: still, I struggle to see it as work.  It’s a joy to be surrounded a) by books and b) by people who want to talk about them.  As I used to work fulltime at the school library, my casual work was limited to the occasional Saturday and holiday cover.  The gap between these stints would usually be just long enough to ensure I’d have time to forget everything I learned the previous time I worked.  But happily, all the regular staff at the two libraries are fabulous to work with, and kindly overlook my errors and fumbling with the computer system .  So I worked 3 days in the first week of the school hols and 2 days this week, the last week of the hols.  I love it, plus it tops up our sailing fund (“cruising tokens”,  as Lin and LarryPardy call it).  However, working 8-5 doesn’t leave much time for doing jobs at home, as I’m sure many a working parent would attest.

These two factors – the yard postponing and me working – have left a bit of a question mark over our departure date.  Although we are still planning to have the house available to let on the 1^st August (it’s now 8^th July).  We’re not in a hurry to go anywhere once we’re on board, so that’s ok.  However, the biggest setback is we had the rigging checked this week., and it was bad news.  Expensive news.

Iron Will is an older boat (launched in 2001 but the build started in 1981!).  A boat’s rigging is constantly working when it’s in the water, lots of constant tiny stresses even as it rocks in a marina berth.  We knew one of the swages (where the wire shroud, holding up the mast, joins the deck) had a crack and needed replacing.  

This is one of the reasons we didn’t sail, only motored, on our inaugural family passage to a local anchorage.   However, the riggers report shows we need to replace ALL the shrouds.  They’re too busy with cyclone work, and it is something Matt and I can do.  The trick is to replace them  just two at a time apparently! However, even without the labour costs of taking off the old and installing the new, it’s going to set us back $10,000 to have the replacement shrouds manufactured.  That’s a lot of money for us.

(No not our actual rigging.  Thankfully.)

We are quite philosophical.  We got this beautiful boat for a very fair price, and this just effectively bumps up the price by $10k.  Boats are beasts that need constant outlay.  The delay?  Our marina berth is booked until 15^th August, and that’s when we’re leaving it.  It’s been awesome having Iron Will in the marina while we move stuff off the boat, tinker with systems, clean and move our belongings on.  But we have no desire to sit in the most expensive marina in Australia for a day longer than we have to.  So there’s a good chance we’ll sit at anchor in the little bay in front of Airlie Beach for a while, til we get the rigging sorted.  But that’s ok.  

It seems crazy that we're rushing, rushing to move on board so that we can do nothing!   Our priority right now is to get the house earning its keep.  And we know that once we’re on board, we want life to slow right down so we can just enjoy our life, our family, for one precious, fleeting year.

Overwhelm

We are T-26 (T = moving aboard day).  Now that I am officially unemployed, I have been throwing myself into Getting Rid of Stuff.  I've been packing non-essentials like pictures and photo albums, sorting out/donating clothes and selling stuff on Facey or filling boxes for the charity shop.  I have to say, I'm pretty rubbish at it.  I find myself walking in small circles sometimes, from kitchen to laundry to bedroom, picking things up, putting things down and getting distracted.  Facebook is the worst! Don't ever try selling stuff on there! It's so easy to get led down a little Facebook lane where you amble along, enjoying the Facey sights, reading everyone's comments, looking at all the pretty flowers in the hedgerow etc etc.  And before you know it, when you pop your head up out of the bubble, you find 45 minutes have passed and you have achieved NOTHING! In fact I nearly made an offer on a ping pong table yesterday.  We're moving onto a boat.  And I was tempted by a ping pong table.

Henry the Ford

The hardest thing to sell has been Matt's beloved tinny and 1966 Ford Falcon.  He's had the car for 28 years! and the tinny nearly as long.  They've both had a lot of love - mainly in the pre-kids days - but have been languishing for a while now.  Matt actually used the Ford as his main car until Tilly was born 9 years ago  No seatbelts in the back meant the start of Henry's retirement.  It's still a huge wrench for Matt, and not a decision I've ever wanted to be part of.  It had to be completely his choice.  Making fun adventures happen can cause sad things to happen along the way.

Thinking inside the box

We've also started two weeks of holidays in Aus, so the kids are home.  I had these delightful thoughts of us all working together to pack up the house.  Laughing and chatting and wiping away the odd tear from happy memories, as we sorted through our possessions to decide what to keep and what to "pass on with love".  Instead the kids are making the most of the holidays and my inattention by running totally wild; creating "dyes" in the treehouse from blueberries and glitter glue, playing "mustangs and mountain lions" (I blame Netflix), racing around the house and through every room.  I find myself miserably wading through piles of dressups, sketchbooks and strange glittery puddles to get from one room to the other.  Getting them to brush their teeth seems like an achievement, and them helping to unpack the dishwasher is a major undertaking.  The civilising reins of school have barely been loosened and they're kicking over the traces already.  I can hear the shrieks from the bottom of the garden from here.

The dog is a saint

... er ... yum?

To add to the challenges of the kids on holidays, the siren call of social media and really not enough time to half the things we need to do in order to rent the house out: we also have the internet playing up and one of the cars now needs a lot of work and money (didn't know that).

Plenty to get on with then.  I might just have a little peek on Facebook before I get back into it.

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times ...

This has been a week of contrasts.  It's the end of Term 2 in Australia, and the start of the 2-week winter hols.  This was the last week of school for Tilly and Sasha and the last week of me working at their school.  This school is a very special place.  It looks like a normal Aussie Catholic school from the outside but is actually a subversive underground club for lots of lovely people and families.  And you're not allowed to be a teacher here unless you have superpowers, including a heart twice the size of a usual human heart and a passion for guiding and shaping young people to be the very best version of themselves possible.  So although we are very VERY excited to be a step closer to dropping the lines and heading out into the wild blue yonder, we are very VERY sad to be leaving this part of our lives behind, at least for now.

Heart-filling stuff

The staff at the campus where I work organised a fabulous morning tea, to say happy birthday to one member of staff and goodbye to me.  Everyone brought a plate and there was so much yummy food and cake.  I was given flowers, cards, a million hugs AND some very nifty drinks holders for the boat! There were speeches.  Very beautiful and touching.  I may or may not have cried, quite a bit.  Other people may or may not have cried too. 

There were some wonderful cards from the students too, and as the week went on, and as I said my goodbyes to each of the borrowing classes that came through the library, I got more hugs, some hip-hip-hoorays and wonderful bon mots from the students.  “Make sure you don’t sink Mrs Stewart”! (do my best!), “you’re the best librarian ever” (thank you), “are Tilly and Sasha going with you?” (hope so!), “I’m going to miss you” (going to miss you too) and the most-heard “will you come back to us?” (I very much hope so).  One class hug was so enthusiastic, my toes scrabbled to keep hold of the ground.  I’m going to miss every single little person that I’ve got to know over the last few years, every little parcel of fun and fears and quirks and worries and hope.  My heart is very full.

This Grade 6 student blew me away.  What a very special lovely person.

I’ve been worried that Tilly and Sasha would struggle to say goodbye to their friends and teachers at the school, but, although sad, they’ve been quite relaxed about it.  I’ve come to the conclusion that this is because they don’t know. They think this is quite normal, that this is how all schools and communities are.  They haven’t been around the block a few times, like I have, I know what a jewel this place is.

A beautiful journal, beautifully inscribed.

What an awesome boat gift!

When we finally left, laden with school books and bags and gifts and hats and precious dinosaur pictures, the light was fading and there was a distinct chill in the air.  I cried again walking to the car across the oval, away from everyone.  I know that we so lucky to be doing this, taking a chance, one long holiday to spend together as a family, living in nature and exploring the islands and beaches and coastline of Australia.  We are so lucky, and we’ve also worked hard and saved hard to be able to make it happen.  And I know there will be challenges and hard parts along the way.  I just thought the hard parts would be on the boat!

So now it’s the first morning of freedom.  Freedom from school and work.  Also freedom from earning an income and someone else being responsible for our kids’s education.  Scary, much?! But I know that we’re one step closer.  Now we have some real work to do, move aboard, get rid of a house full of stuff by giving it away or selling it or storing it, then finding someone to rent the house.  We’re facing forward, chins up, ready for the hard work and the adventuring to begin. 

Past lives ... working on boats

We've had some people asking about our past, before kids, when we used to work on boats.  We met working on an awesome 50m private yacht with a crew of 12.

This is a beautiful boat that just goes round and round and round the world, slowly, and the owners or their friends fly out and join the boat for a week or two.  Matt was on board for 2 years and completed a circumnavigation.  We met when I joined in Palma, Mallorca and we left the boat a year later in Seattle.  It was an absolute blast! We worked hard and played harder.

Some of the lovely crew - in front of a glacier in Alaska. Brrrr!

Anti-pirate shotgun training from ex-Naval Seals for the Straits of Mellacca passage.  It was nerve-wracking.

Matt in his loathed "whites" at Portofino

Refuelling in Malta.

We left this boat reluctantly, mainly because red-flagged vessels like this one (ie UK registered) don't recognise Aussie maritime qualifications, and vice-versa.  So, so annoying.  (10 years on, nothing has changed.)

We joined a smaller boat with Matt as Captain and me stewardessing and another English guy as deckie.  It was a total rocket machine, Italian designed and built, and turned heads everywhere in the Med that season.

Transiting the Corinthian Canal,

On the bridge.

A spot of sewing on the aft deck.

Before I joined the 50m where we met, I'd worked on a couple of 50 foot sailing yachts on the Med/Caribbean circuit.  The first one was a lovely Chuck Paine design that I single handed in the Caribbean for a season for the private owner, who'd fly out occasionally for a week or two.  The other was a wonderful older Swan 51 that was run as commercial vessel, going round the Med regattas and taking paying passengers on for weeks at a time; racing or transitting.  I did several Atlantic crossings, one back from the West Indies back to the UK that I skippered and used the passage to take my Yachtmaster Ocean.  I loved both the boats and have very fond memories of those years.  Sadly I don't have any pics of the Swan, no camera (actually it was lost during a riotous night in La Gomera, the Canaries, and was never replaced) and pre-iPhones!

Such a beautiful boat.

My brother came out to visit and we had a great time in the BVIs.  I'm the one with skin like an old handbag!

We both loved working on the boats but were very ready to settle down back in 2007, and bought a few acres in the Whitsundays to build our dream home.