Sailing in Treacherous Waters to Alaska. With Toddlers for Crew.
'With a barely-4-year-old and a not-quite-2-year-old, in a 32-foot boat sailing up the Inside Passage, a family discovers the best rewards are those never imagined.
This was the third time I’d sailed up the Inside Passage in a boat. The third time I’d watched surf explode from the rocky headlands of northern Vancouver Island, the swell rhythmically shifting my view of the horizon. The umpteenth time I’d listened to the weather forecast on the VHF radio while gulls catapulted past me in the wind. But it was the first time I’d done a trip like this with young children on board.
Last June, in the lengthening days of summer, my husband, Pat, and I launched north from Bellingham, Wash., on a 32-foot sailboat with our sons for crew. In 15 years together, we’d learned that we were happiest when we were outdoors; now, we were applying these same lessons as a family. We set out, like we had so many times before, in search of wilderness, adventure, and the thrill that comes when we push beyond our comfort zones. Under the tutelage of a barely-4-year-old and a not-quite-2-year-old, in a floating home the size of a child’s bedroom, we soon discovered that the best rewards were those we’d never imagined.
“Mommy, when I pee in the ocean it gets fuller,” Huxley announced. My older son gazed back at me with serious dark eyes as he shared his latest observation. With one hand, I held onto the back of his life jacket while he relieved himself over the lifeline of our sailboat; with the other arm, I balanced my younger son on my bent knee. Pat was adjusting the sails while keeping watch for a flailing child. We juggled between single-handing the boat and managing kids. Each shift, Pat and I drew straws. The winner got the boat.
But on this day, I was the lucky one. As I helped Huxley pull up his rain pants, a humpback whale surfaced 40 feet from us. Huxley heard the whale before he saw it; his eyes widening at the whale’s loud “whoosh” as he turned instinctively toward the sound. Grinning, he pointed to its enormous silvery back as a plume of breath rose into the sky. So close I could make out the barnacles and unique markings on its skin, I held my boys tight and we peered together into a magical, underwater world. A moment later, the whale was gone, leaving only a stream of bubbles in its wake. . .
Pat and I are sailors. We are adventurers. We are also parents. It’s a dilemma we all must face: how to reconcile our many different identities into a life that feels true, and good, and, in the end, responsible. Into an existence that leaves room for others. Spending the summer on a boat was our attempt to knit the disparate parts of our lives together. On both of our previous journeys up this coastline (by sailboat and rowboat, respectively), our days were distilled to the simplest of objectives: sail, row, eat, sleep, breathe. There were only ourselves, and each other, to look after as we traversed thousands of miles alone. On this trip, many of the elements remained the same: the ocean, the wind, the waves. Yet there had been a fundamental shift; we had two young companions to remind us of the stakes, and of the joy.'>>>
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/13/travel/alaska-family-sailing-inside-passage.html?
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It takes truly special people to attempt such a trip, and these parents are just that. Plus they are crazy.
