A look into the lives of cruising families.

Boat Kids enjoying another sunset

Like other cruising families, I remember getting ready to tell our friends and family that we had decided to sell our home, all of our belonging, buy a boat and set sail. For weeks, we discussed how we thought other's reactions were going to play out....who would be supportive, who would laugh in our faces, who was going to crap their pants or who would call us crazy. 

We decided to try our news first on our friends to see what type of questions we'd receive and what type of reactions we would get. We got a few, "sober up guys! that shit will never happen"!  No surprise there, till the next morning when a few of our friends could tell we were serious. Dead serious.  

Then came the task of telling the parents. Phil's family would be told over the phone and my parents in person over dinner.  What amazed us, was how wrong we had pegged their reactions. Those who we thought would disown us, were our greatest supporters and those who we thought would love our idea, all but organized a "Save the Children" campaign complete with Sally Struthers. 

A year later, we've come to find out, we're not alone. Not everyone supports the lives of a cruising family and funny thing, we're all still out here, doing what we want....no support needed, we have each other.  A fun time for us cruising moms is to have a sundowner while exchanging some of the insults we have received by family members after announcing our decision to set sail as a family.

" you're one of them............homeless"

"you're crazy for doing this"

"your kids are going to hate you for this"

"why can't you just be normal"

Who the hell takes off with a family to go sailing anyway? If you were to ask our parents, it's over-educated, under-employed gypsies. If you were to ask our friends, it's people that are a few beers shy of a 6-pack. If you were to ask anyone off the street, they'd have no idea sailing with a family is even an option outside of a Disney Cruise.  There are enough cruising families to warrant an entire book on how to go about it. Our friends wrote Voyaging with Kids to help others make the leap, we even wrote a piece for the book, and highly recommend getting this book if you're wanting more insight on what it's like to cruise with kids. 

After a year of sailing Mexico, I have compiled some information as to the makeup of a cruising family. You might be surprised, as was I, of who makes up this amazing group. The following information is from families we have actually met or cruised with. There are many other families sailing Mexico that we, unfortunately, haven't had a chance to meet yet. 

25 Cruising Families

47 Children  and 1 "child" over 18

4 boats were catamarans

"Most" of us sold our homes and everything in it

3 of the boats were on a year-long sabbatical

Boat kid ages range between 2-14 years old

"Most" of us are from California

0% of us have won the lottery

1 boat decided that sailing wasn't for them and sold their boat

2 boats crossed the Pacific last year

6 boats are to cross the Pacific this year

5 boats are talking about crossing the Pacific next year

0% of us let naysayers hold us back

2 boats have retired grandparents nice enough to be sailing with a grandchild

3 boat kids were brought home to their boats from the hospital

Average ages of boat kid 10-12 years old

100% of the boat kids are homeschooled

All of us started with an idea and created a plan

Job Titles of some of the cruisers before leaving "reality"

*Chief Operating Officer of credit processing company

*Financial Analyst

*Commercial Airline Pilot

*Executive at Cisco Systems 

*Rocket Scientist (seriously!)

*Anesthesiologist

*Computer Engineer

*Construction Company owner

*Executive at American Express

*Senior Mechanical Engineer at Chevron

*Operations Manager at IBM

*Commercial Fisherman

*Nurse (4)

*Wine Maker

*Electrical Engineer (2)

*Geologist

*Occupational Therapist

*High School Teacher

*Research Scientist

Cruising requires brain power. Contrary to what some may think, we're not a group of floundering idiots (yes, some people think that of this group....we're all supposed to be working hard, 10 hours a day....that's the "American Way"). To cruise you need to be a plumber, electrician, engineer, chef, navigator, ....or have a bucket of money to pay someone else to do it all. We didn't all start out with the essential knowledge of how to do everything, most of us learn as we go and rely on the amazing sailing community to share what they know. 

If you're considering sailing with your family and like "safety in numbers", good news, your village is "out here" waiting for you.