Travel-schooling ~ Sailing lessons

The Hemingway's on Mehari

 After getting on to the sailboat, our family quickly realized that if we all did not learn sailing and the basics ...we would be in a heap of trouble. We also realized that the burden of this adventure could NOT solely lie on Erik.  Which meant school must now take a dramatic change.  Erik and I were excited about this, however I am not sure the kids were at first. 


Erik has always been one of those people that LOVED learning.  I can remember being newly married and going to the library.  His stack of books were always "How-to's" and topics which fascinated him. This has also been our goal for Homeschooling.  There is no way we as parents can possibly teach everything a
child wants or needs to know, but if you teach a love for learning or skills so that they can teach themselves, then that is success!  So we were in a perfect situation to teach our kids this very lesson.



First, all kids were given basic sailing books.  Boat terms and vocabulary. Emergency procedures,  and equipment.  We all needed to know the proper names of things in order to be on the same page. Levi was also given a diesel motor maintenance book, because guess who was now going to learn to up-keep the
engines? He read and re-read the book as scheduled maintenance on the engines came up. He loved it! This included the dingy motor repair.   All 3 older kids were given chart books and pilot books to study for navigation. Chart/Pilot books give coordinates, how to navigate,  ocean depths,  latitude and longitude,  weather and emergency information,  port entries and authority information, anchor holding, and much more.  They have all learned to tie different knots and numerous other sailing info and tips along the way. Wow!  So much.  When I think back at all they have learned it makes me proud to see the confidence it has given them,  even if none of them ever become sailors.


We all look back and laugh at our first anchoring experience.  It was so stressful and a total disaster...I know none of us slept at all that night, but that's another blog ;)


~ Rachel