Seven at Sea

I just finished reading the book Seven at Sea by Erik and Emily Orton in which parents describe their adventures sailing with their five children.  Stressed out by the struggle to get by in the big city, the family takes off for a year in the cruising catamaran Fezywig.  They later return to the comforts of home but then continue to seek escape as summarized in the epilogue.

It was an interesting contrast with another cruising family that I have been watching on YouTube, the crew of Zatara.  Recently I had a chance to attend a meet-and-greet event with the Sailing Zatara family in Flower Mound, Texas.  You can see me briefly in the background of their latest video.

The main difference between the two crews is how much money they had to spend for their journeys.  For Fezywig, the trip was a temporary respite which left them financially drained.  For Zatara, going back to land is just a vacation from their vacation because they are enjoying a well-funded early retirement.

The main similarity is how the fathers were stressed out by their careers and craved more time with their families while their children were still young.  These fathers sought the refuge of blue space.  I also see this in the first few minutes of the first episode of Travels by Narrowboat in which a man describes the burnout that is his life and then enthuses about gliding away from it all.