Meet Cruising Kids in Med 2013?

[myocean]

Hi Together!
We will start in April next year for our great voyage with two kids (3.5 and 1.5 years). Mediterranean until October, than go west. (ARC included)
It would be great to meet other cruisers with kids in the Med. Who will be around?
What is the best platform for finding such contacts?
Ulf

[Red Charlotte]

Ulf, I think your name means you are male. I'm just asking because there is a group on Facebook for Women Sailors. If your wife or significant other would like to join, she could definitely get in contact with other families there.

Here is the link, but it is ladies only Women who Sail

[myocean]

Great - my wife will join!

[Surfer Girl]

Hi Ulf, we should be in the Med about the same time and also crossing the pond in November. Our kids are a bit older - our youngest son will be 10 by then but he is good with little kids. Our daughter will be 16 and my oldest son 19.
We were in the Caribbean in 2003 and they were 9, 6 & 6mths respectively. Your 1.5 year old will be the challenge on a yacht because toddlers have unsteady legs and can't really hang on for themselves - I'm sure you have it covered
Anyway, hope to bump into you - not literally, of course!

[johnandtessa]

Ulf - We have been in the Med since sailing over from Annapolis in June. We have a 8 and 11 year old on board with us. One thing that has really surprised us both is the sheer lack of kids on boats in the Med. We are currently in Greece (headed to Turkey for winter) and have been to many marinas in Portugal, Spain, Italy and here. We have found only two boats with kids on them. There have been a few others with kids less than 5 years of age. We have put a similar request for kids on this site and several others. Currently we know of 2 kid-boats in Marmaris for the winter but this is all. We will be sailing back to Portugal from Turkey and March/April and maybe we will cross paths...
John
PS: The Med is still excellent for kids... lots of beaches, fish and warm water.

[myocean]

Thank you for sharing your experiences!

Originally Posted by johnandtessa

has really surprised us both is the sheer lack of kids on boats in the Med. We are currently in Greece (headed to Turkey for winter) and have been to many marinas in Portugal, Spain, Italy and here. We have found only two boats with kids on them. There have been a few others with kids less than 5 years of age.

Is it possible that the reason is, that home schooling is much more common in the US than in Europe? In Europe the rules are more strict and the parents more hesitant about this I can imagine.

[Christian Rene]

My kids are 6 and 3. Any suggestions? I'm afraid they won't enjoy sailing but their my wife want them to join.

[monstads]

Christian,
We have a 3 and 5 year old. Mostly done small trips on local lakes, the longest so far only 24hrs, so there are plenty of folks with much more experience than me on here. That said, here are some things we've learned:

- Kids pick up on your mood. Stressed and nervousness (of which we had plenty the first few times) can be greatly amplified with kids acting out. Try to stay calm and keep the kids out of any tense parts, and down below if possible.
- Before getting under way, let the kids roam the boat/foredeck (with life jackets!) as much as they want. Keep a boat hook close by :-) Explain that they won't be allowed up once your moving (assuming you adopt that rule).
- Let them (at least the eldest) skipper. Closely supervised, even better if you also have the autopilot engaged.
- Try to involve them as much as possible. "Helping" to pull on lines when hoisting sails/tacking, checking out other boats in binnocs, preparing meals/snacks, reading instruments every so often (the depth finder is our favorite) helps them feel part of it, and makes them aware of how the boat operates, and things to be aware of. (other boats, shallow water)
- Shorter passages are better for our kids. 2-3hrs max if you can. Consider stopping somewhere, even just to swim/fish, cook etc for a while to break it up. Our 5 y/o is just learning to swim, and is now up to 5 laps around the boat (with life jacket). Great way to burn off some energy.
- Bubbles! Soap bubbles are great fun. Just keep a bucket of water close to rinse the cockpit (can get slippery)
- Fishing! Helps to actually catch something too, so don't be picky. Catch and release of small fish is lots of fun for them.

In addition, we have a small set of toys and books on board , and in an emergency (see part about tense situations) also have some movies on our smart phones but try really hard not to resort to that.

Hope some of that helps, and have fun!

[KJB]

Originally Posted by myocean

Thank you for sharing your experiences!


Is it possible that the reason is, that home schooling is much more common in the US than in Europe? In Europe the rules are more strict and the parents more hesitant about this I can imagine.

Many places in Europe are hostile to home-schoolers. Some to the point of jailing the parents and removing the children. I'm not just speaking of the Eastern portions either. America is seemingly not far behind (at least in some areas).

I don't know if that is the primary reason why, but it's perhaps worth considering. Family friendly policies may produce more cruising families. My 2 cents.

[Charlie]

We have spent the last two summers in Italy. Our kids were out of school. We had teenagers on a 10m (33ft) boat. Ages were 17,16,16,and 14. We met up with other kids but not many on boats. We spent the entire time in Italy sailing from La Spezia to Elba and back.

[rabbi]

We cruised 2011 in the Med and 2012 to the Caribbean, our kids just turned 4 and 5 at start of the trip.

Both did not have any trouble to adjust to the sailing life. It can be very unnerving if the kids can't swim, so have them learn swimming before. Our girl learned to swim early in the trip, at the end she swam to the beach alone and was able to dive down to the bottom at 4m depth.

The kids accepted sailing as necessary to move to a new adventure but did not particularly enjoy it. We did the island passages in the Med as night trips and that helped a lot. So the only day sailing for them was hopping from anchorage to anchorage. If this was a longer sail, we stopped in the middle, just to take a swim and eat lunch.
Seasickness was a problem everytime we left a quiet anchorage / port in less than perfect weather. But longer passages were OK as they got better the second day and after two days they could do whatever they wanted without being affected at all: Climbing around upside down, reading, doing puzzles, whatever.

The longer passages Gibraltar-Canaries-Cap Verdes-Antilles) were a bit tiring for the parents as we did not take any crew with us. Since the kids basically require attention from dawn to dusk this means we had only the night to sleep, which allows little sleep if you do continous watches. Anyway we all adjusted well after a few days.
During a passage the kids need attention and lot's of games, playdoo, books, stories on MP3, etc. We had few movies on our laptop but did not use them until boring rainy days in the anchorage.


Social life:
In the Med the kids found lots of kids on the beach from local hotels but very few on boats.
In the Caribbean we found a few boats with kids, but not many. The was partly because our kids don't speak english (yet).

Germany does not allow homeschooling of any kind, they will even take the kids and send the parent to jail in extreme cases. That is one reason why very few German families are out there cruising and was also the reason for us to do the trip before school started.

[itdave5]

Originally Posted by KJB

Many places in Europe are hostile to home-schoolers. Some to the point of jailing the parents and removing the children. I'm not just speaking of the Eastern portions either. America is seemingly not far behind (at least in some areas).

I don't know if that is the primary reason why, but it's perhaps worth considering. Family friendly policies may produce more cruising families. My 2 cents.

Not sure where you heard this from, but I have two boys and they have both been in Schools in Italy and UK and there has never been a problem taking them out of school. We just signed a form to let the school know and we were gone. UK has said the school is open for my son to come and go as we please. So if there is a problem it is in the imagination of someone.
we are sailing from Rome this May waiting for the weather to cheer up. our plans are Corsica, Sardinia, maybe up to France. Hopefully meet some kids.
Hopefully meet up.
hillyardladybear.blogspot.com

[itdave5]

Originally Posted by Charlie

We have spent the last two summers in Italy. Our kids were out of school. We had teenagers on a 10m (33ft) boat. Ages were 17,16,16,and 14. We met up with other kids but not many on boats. We spent the entire time in Italy sailing from La Spezia to Elba and back.

We are sailing around there this summer. Where are you now?
hillyardladybear.blogspot.com

Great to meet up Amanda, Dave Artie 8yrs and Lorenzo 9yrs

[johnandtessa]

Also, try joining www.kids4sail.org. It has a member's map showing locations of other kid boats.
Tessa
www.mightytenho.blogspot.com

[goboatingnow]

In my experience, when I was sailing with teh kids, both in the Med, the Carribean, and teh US ( they had well travelled teddy bears!). was that there was always few kids on boats anywhere. When we got them into shorebased dinghy sailing , suddenly there was lots of kids, but again most are shorebased.

Kids in general are rare on cruising boats, the young ones get bored, the older ones dont want to be within a rats roar of their parents.!!

dave