What is it really like to spend 31 days on a 40 foot sail boat in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, with only your immediate family for company, no internet, shops, hospitals or help for thousands of miles?

I’ll tell you what it’s like – it’s incredible! A chance to completely switch off from the world and instead whole heartedly reconnect with each other.

Children

Ask boat kids about ocean passages and most of them will groan and roll their eyes and tell you how boring they are! To them not being able to escape the boat or see other children for a few weeks feels like a life sentence. Let’s face it – in a child’s short life, 31 days is a lifetime, add to that the fact that they can’t use their usual form of entertainment (the internet) and “aaagggh, I hate passages!!” But once on those passages a different child emerges, a child filled with time, time to chat to their parents and siblings about every subject imaginable, a child eager to help in the galley or with chores to fill the time they have, one that will come up with new inventive games or stories to entertain their family. No longer are you battling for your child’s attention, you have it – for a full 31 days!!!

Yes, this can be exhausting, especially when you have to manage your watch keeping, cooking, schooling, boat maintenance and sleep. To get yourself into a routine takes a couple of days, but eventually you realise how to make it work for everyone. Our trick was to involve the kids in as many of our tasks as we could. The water maker filters need changing – “Nathan please can you help do that.” “Dylan, please can you do an hour of my watch for me this afternoon, so I can catch up on some sleep?” “It’s washing day – lets take turns on hand washing our garments and hanging them up to dry!” “Oh look, we need to clear the deck of all the flying fish and squid that landed there during the night, before they start to smell!”

Boredom

As you can see with all the jobs and chores that need doing to keep the boat moving and functioning, there are only a few hours a day that need filling. Personally we wanted to make sure this trip was fun for our boys, we knew it was going to be long, and sometimes tough for them, and we were determined that when they looked back on our longest ocean passage that they had fond memories.

We loaded the boat with new games, each evening at sunset we would pour ourselves a special cold drink (no alcohol on passages), sit down around the cockpit table with some snacks and play a game. One of my favourite was quiz night. One person was the designated quiz master, they had the day to compile 20 questions on a subject. The questions mostly came out of the multiple school books and encyclopaedias we had on board. The quiz was then taken by the rest of the family, the winner got an extra sweet! (Luxuries such as sweets and candy were closely monitored and rationed on these passages!)

The quiz night served two purposes – they were great fun and often had us in hysterics with the funny answers that came up, but they also meant that we were all learning something new. How often does your 10 year old get the opportunity to teach you something new, and feel great about it!

Teamwork

Another great thing about long passages is the teamwork that develops. It really doesn’t take long for the whole family to realise that we need to work together. All kids and adults hate chores, but as adults we realise they have to get done, and just do them – hopefully without complaining! When on a passage we found our boys eager to help and get their hands dirty. Don’t get me wrong this eagerness quickly fades once we reach land, but for some reason on a passage an instinct kicks in and they too realise that their help is needed. They realise they have a big part in this family team that is working hard to get us across this ocean, and that does wonders to the family relationships and dynamics.

Wonders of nature

There is something incredibly special about experiencing the worlds wonders with your children. Being in the middle of the ocean gave us many of these amazing opportunities.

The beautiful, starry night skies that had us gazing for hours together, waiting for the inevitable shooting star, leaving us all gasping once it appeared! The Mahi Mahi fish swimming alongside the boat for days, using us as form of protection from larger predators, and hunting the flying fish that our boat disturbed. The huge pods of dolphins playing and jumping at our bows, bringing smiles and cheers from us all, and the amazing phosphorescence that exploded in our wake on the darkest of nights.

Of course there was also the sadder side of the ocean that we got to see and experience. Coming across the massive fishing fleets who station themselves in the middle of the Pacific ocean away from prying eyes, hauling out tons and tons of fish everyday. We may hear about things like this – but to truly see the scale of the operation really touches you. Seeing this made us all vow never to eat commercially fished seafood, especially canned tuna again…

Milestones

Living such a simple, day to day life makes you very appreciative. Every milestone big or small was worthy of a celebration. One of our biggest celebrations was crossing the equator from the northern hemisphere into the southern. All mariners know this is a very big deal when you do it for the first time. As it was My, Dylan and Nathan’s first crossing Shawn put on the traditional ceremony, where we all had to give thanks to Neptune for keeping us safe, we were all initiated and celebrated becoming bonefied Shellback members. Watch our Youtube video of the fun we had on this ceremony.

Dylan turned 14 on the most challenging part of the crossing, so we had to somehow make his day fun and memorable for him. We played party games, made pizzas and did everything we could to make him feel special, including lots of handmade cards and gifts throughout the day. We did remind him that he was probably the only 14 year old to have payed pass the parcel with his family on his birthday!

We held parties for every 1000 nm sailed, we basically just celebrated as much as we could! There was also a competition held for who could spot land first as we got closer, as you can imagine the binoculars became very popular objects on the boat!

Finally Arriving

We were obviously very happy to finally make landfall exactly a month after we left Panama. We were all so excited to see friends, eat fresh fruit and veg again, go for long walks and discover a new land. But looking back on our Pacific crossing now makes me so grateful for the time it gave us to spend together as a family, with no distractions or outside influences.

Those 31 days at sea has cemented a deep bond between the four of us, one I hope we will never loose or forget.

It was definitely some of the most special 31 days of my life!