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Our education was rather cobbled together. I went to a different school almost every year.
When we left California Mom and Dad just took the books along that we had been studying from. Then we tried Calvert School. That worked a lot better. But neither Mom nor Dad was a good teacher. Mom would just leave it up to us. Dad would loose his temper over trivialities. By the time I was 12 and they were busy chartering in the Caribbean, Tim and I were dropped off on the dock to struggle through our lessons unaided. I hurried through seventh grade in just four months and then landed my first job, as assistant to a local large-format photographer. I'm not sure however, if my brother ever finished that year. Successful home schooling is dependent on the child's self-discipline and the parent's ability to encourage without waging war. Besides my two years of correspondence school I attended local church schools, and in one year, two different public schools in Miami. At fifteen I was "rescued," and felt grateful to finish my high school education back in Coronado where I lived with my grandmother and graduated with flying colors despite the unconventionality of my school days.
A sense of personal responsibility.
Naturally my life was profoundly affected by my seagoing upbringing. When a child steers in the dead of night, when everyone else is asleep, in him is bred a sense of personal responsibility for the safety of the yacht and its precious cargo of family. Cruising kids, whose lives have been oriented around adults, can find themselves socially disadvantaged however, out of step with their peers, as I found out when I flew to California at age 15. I never did get the hang of teenage "small talk" and the more subtle social climbing requirements, so I guess you can't have it all.
Changing Times
Times have changed and so have places. In the early days in the Caribbean we knew all the cruising yachts personally. Most of them were committed cruisers and few were rich. No matter what flag they flew the local islanders welcomed them in an honest, dignified and delightful way. The West Indian, in the waning days of the Empire, was a self-reliant and independent person who fished and gardened to feed his family. By the late eighties the pressures of excessive numbers of seasonal yachts and their demands had lessened the stranger's appeal to the local. I guess cruising like any form of tourism changes the local people forever.
Changed beyond recognition.
The average cruiser has also changed almost beyond recognition. He was once very dependent on fellow cruisers and locals alike and made it his business to be kind and friendly to them. When he met another cruiser there was no question but that they would share a yarn and a meal together. But nowadays oftentimes they barely give a passing nod to other yachtsmen, even when there are just two of you in an anchorage. We used to need each other, and so were used to helping out with each other's problems. Just yesterday Michael assisted a visitor to avoid snagging a long anchor chain in this bay we know well. We are the natives here. They didn't even bother to wave as they roared by in the dinghy later.
Cruisers used to spend long hours ashore visiting and watching the preparation of local food or the building of fishing boats under the shade of palm trees. Nowadays, in so many places frequented by modern yachtsmen the indigenous culture has given way to gaudy hotel floorshows and prepared "feasts". Some recent arrivals from the Pacific island "Coconut Milk Run" dismiss all the rich panoply of Polynesian and Melanesian cultures with a disparaging, "Seen one island, seen 'em all!"
Physically less demanding.
Yachting today is physically so very much less demanding. Boats are bigger, lighter and mostly newer. Electronics, roller reefing and self-steering has made sailing them a piece of cake, especially in regions with settled weather and handy repairmen. But as the rules of good behavior disappear, so have the rules of prudent seamanship. And that is not to mention the demise of seagoing terminology. But not all is lost. Well away from the heavily trafficked Caribbean hot spots in the outer reaches of the world are still places where our arrival evokes almost as much wonder as it did half a century ago.
High Optimism.
As children Tim and I grew independent and resourceful. It was with high optimism that on the day of my graduation I thought to myself, I can do anything, shape my life any way I like. Such confidence can only have resulted from the enormous freedoms we had as children to discover who we were. I was soon off to hitchhike Europe, then trained as a photographer and took a few English and journalism courses. From earnings I built my own small house and then at twenty-one married Michael, veteran of several cruises in the North Sea, who had at 15 sailed with his parents out from England in a gaff-rigged 1906 Falmouth Quay Punt. I was immediately drawn to him as the only true youthful sailor I knew. After our marriage, together we ran our offshore construction company where I acted as secretary and bookkeeper. In the BVI his parents, Allan and Jean Batham, started Marina
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