SEALONGING SELKIE

LIFE ONBOARD

Westerly 49

In June of 2017, we left Ohio and Michigan waters for a life aboard Selkie. We got to know her with a year sailing in the Caribbean, then crossing the Atlantic, via Bermuda and the Azores, and a year in Ireland and Scotland. The following summer, we sailed the North Sea, visited the fjords of Norway, stopped in Denmark, and circled the Baltic Sea. In winter of 2020, we sailed southwest England, crossed the Bay of Biscay, enjoyed Galicia, Spain, crossed to the Canary Islands, sailed south to Cape Verde, and crossed the ocean back to the Caribbean. In 2021, we visited and spent months cruising St Lucia, Antigua and Barbuda, then Sint Maarten and the Dominican Republic. During hurricane season, our boat was tucked in safely in Rio Dulce, Guatemala, for a refit. We have planned a four-year circumnavigation. Just recently we have traversed the Panama Canal, sailed to the Galapagos, crossed the vast Pacific, and enjoyed French Polynesia. New Zealand is in our sights.

HOMESCHOOL ABOARD

Mom, as a third generation teacher, leads the way.

In the school year to come, we will pair with Moving Beyond the Page, Oak Meadow, and Math-U-See with additional books, art, and musical instruments to make living onboard just as educational as life on land. Adding travel, like historic sites, museums, and cultural experiences, is the best education a child can get. Boat kids are the best kids!

FUTURE PLANS

2022

We are officially Pacific Cruisers! Our family is enjoying the islands of this vast ocean.

"I need the sea because it teaches me."

Pablo Neruda

SUBSCRIBE AND FOLLOW SELKIE ON YOUTUBE.

Click here to go to our YouTube!

TRACK SELKIE

View us in real time as we circumnavigate.

NEW PUBLICATION: 
LEVELS OF THE OCEAN

Poetry Chapbook! Released March 2022!

Levels of the Ocean is poetry written by a sailing mother on a night watch. When it begins, she is new to live-aboard sailing, but as you progress through the poems, you grow with her on overnight crossings. The poems take you from the Carribean Seas where “moist tongues told truths,” over the North Atlantic where the “ocean whispers,” through the Thames and the Baltic Sea with “soft moves that settle on the skin,” then across the Bay of Biscay to a sound that is “like gods fighting from below.” Eventually, in the ocean off of Portugal, the sails “bang, clang, creak, hull smash, wave break, whomp,” which gives you a “strange embrace.” At the darkest moment, environmentally, mentally, she confronts “expectations towards death,” and lastly, finally, messages and life “seeps through the hull into dreams.” Enjoy this poetic, sailing adventure!

HER SEA-FILLED ARMS:
LAYERS OF BLUE

New Poetry Chapbook to be released Feb. 14, 2023

PUBLICATIONS

Cruising World January 2021 "Wintering Aboard in the Scottish Highlands"

My live-aboard family of six has docked. We pull off our Irish sailing Duberries and slip into our knee-high Wellies. We step off the boat onto the floating pontoon at Oban Marina, and stretch our legs after crossing the North Atlantic and sailing up the Irish Sea. When I put on my Wellies, my sea body becomes a land body again. I walk through the boatyard, and trudge through the muddy paths, and my sailing soul is filled with the piece of land my heart needs. Floating offshore aboard Selkie is the life we have chosen, but this land, this place, the family of Oban Marina and Kerrera is a home we chose for the Winter....

“Another storm is coming. Double check your lines.” Yes. Of course, just another huge wind spiraling in off the North Atlantic. It’s like living inside the tornado that takes Dorothy over the rainbow, and if you can endure the rigging slapping in the wind that whistles through the highlands to your hatches, the water slapping the hull, and the dock lines stretching, squeaking and pulling, you truly live in a brightly colorful, magical land of adventure. Every week one blows through, and we get use to it like a weekend. It becomes a two-day family holiday aboard—we hang tight, listen to Selkie get yanked back and forth, cook a giant pot of spicy chili in the galley, get hands-on our homeschool work, or explore another mechanical endeavor in need of improvement. When the storm settles, and everything is still, we can hear distant hairy cows moo, laughter, dogs, and an announcement of the CalMac ferry across the bay.

MEET DADDY: AKA CAPTAIN NICK

Sailing since childhood, he is a jack-of-all-trades, and a master of fun!

MEET MOMMA: AKA TEACHER/WRITER

She is a sailing, sassy momma that enjoys being a teacher, writer, wife, and galley goddess.

MEET TRISTAN (16)

Made from boat life, Tristan is comfortable onboard being a big brother, writer, and adventurer.

MEET LILY (14)

Lily is a sweet and understanding sister that enjoys drawing, cooking, writing, and exercising.

MEET MARA (9)

Mara in the middle is willing to rile up any kind of fun and hopes to be a pop star!

MEET RORY (6)

Rory is Selkie-raised and learned to walk onboard. He's actually in charge of us all.