I’m not 100% sure when the idea of sailing around the world with the boys really came to be. I think we were searching for something different to do, and one day heard about another Weybridge family who had done it. The Craven family. Their son Columbus was in Dylan’s rugby team. I was captivated by their story and read each of their blogs on their website. When Casper Craven eventually launched his book “Where the Magic Happens” I must’ve been one of the first people to purchase it.

What caught my imagination was here was family that lived the same sort of lives we did, in the same town, and they had managed it. If they could do it why couldn’t we? I listened to Caspers audiobook twice over, living the adventures & taking notes on the advice he gave, eventually passing it over to Shawn. For me the decision to do it was made whilst I listened. Casper & Nicola if you are reading this – thank you! You were a real inspiration to us.

Weeks turned into months. Life carried on as usual. Shawn left for work in London at 6.30am every morning and came home again at 7.30pm – just in time to see the boys before they went to bed. I carried on with my usual everyday routine of getting the boys ready for school, dashing to work, trying to fit as much in as much as I can before having to dash off again to collect them. Life was busy, our days were very full. Both Shawn and I were always tired & stressed.

Eventually one evening whilst lying in bed planning our day ahead we cracked! Lets do it I told Shawn! He knew exactly what I was talking about, and needless to say he did not need any persuading! We decided that night we wanted our lives to change, that we wanted to sail around the world with the boys and spend more time enjoying life together.

The following months were spent decorating our house and getting it ready to put on the market. We knew we couldn’t afford to buy a boat and have money to sustain ourselves for a couple years without selling. We hadn’t told anyone about our big plan at this stage, as we had a lot of decisions to make, things to sort out, people and business’ to think about. So we kept it to ourselves for a good year and a half. We wanted to make sure we had thought about everything. We knew there would be a lot of different opinions and questions, which we wanted to be sure to have the answers to. We needed people to realise that we didn’t just hatch this plan overnight, it was a very well thought through, considered plan, that we didn’t take lightly! It was our & the boys future, so we wanted to make sure we had all the carefully considered everything before we made it real.

We decided to plan a sailing holiday to test out how the boys got on with living on a boat. So we booked a last minute October half term break in Croatia on board a Lagoon 400 S2 catamaran called Wonderland. We went with good friends and had an awesome time. Shawn and I secretly giving each other the look every time the boys told us how great this was. It was a great week and we couldn’t wait to get home to start looking into catamaran’s. We loved the space and stability we had on Wonderland, especially with children on board. Before this Shawn had never sailed a catamaran before, so he was a bit nervous of the size, however after this trip he was converted. I was converted purely on the fact that I did not have to stow everything whenever we went sailing! The boys loved lying on the trampoline and letting the wave splash them.

When we returned from Croatia we were buzzing. We loved our week on board and were excited about looking at what catamaran’s were out there and what we could perhaps afford.

The house was having a few viewings, and we were looking at catamarans online. We booked a couple sailing weekends on the solent to get the boys use to sailing in all conditions. These weekends were great fun, we got to stay onboard and then we’d have a skipper take us out during the day. It was great practise for Shawn and good experience for the boys and I.

After a few months we accepted an offer on our house. Suddenly we were forced into making a decision. We knew we were no where ready with our sailing plan, so we decided to rent a house for 6 months whilst we looked for our boat and got ourselves organised. The 6 months went by in a flash, and we realised that if we were going to find the right boat that we needed to be able to hop on a plane to go and view them. So Shawn stopped working and devoted all his time researching and planning to make our dream happen.

Eventually we were making progress on a plan that had been consuming our minds for so long. We were both so excited for the future!

Read our blog on boat shopping to find out how we under estimated the complexities and challenges we faced.