Pirates

We had the boat ship shape and ready to rock by the time Deneb and Seren showed up at 10:30. The kids were overflowing with excitement to have little Seren aboard, and just couldn’t wait to show him everything. Seren, warmed up to the chaos and excitement much more quickly than I would have expected (being his second time aboard a boat). After a quick detour at the pump out we made our way, ever so carefully, out the channel. We were worried about the latent tsunami effects and the low tide, but between the chart plotter and the crew’s watchful eyes, we made it out at dead low tide without a snag. Once safely out of the harbor we were greeted with the sight of several races, replete with their golden and graphite sails, underway all around us. I engaged the tiller pilot (or Otto, as Deneb dubbed it) and headed up to the mast to raise sail. We quickly killed the diesel and everyone exhaled and inhaled the warm(ish) salty spring air. ...

Believe it or not this was spontaneous. I have no idea how Olive knew where the pirates are or where Hawaii is. I guess unschooling is working for our family.

We’ve really needed a relaxing family vacation for a while, and with time counting down to the big trip, we also need to make sure that the family is up for extended sailing. Last night, after weeks of thinking about these two items individually a plan popped into my head that married both of these concerns into a harmonic union. This morning I asked Ruby if she would like to go sailing for the week after Christmas. She asked a bunch of probing questions – “Can I bring my dolls?” and “What will we do about pirates” – and when she was satisfied with the answers, wholeheartedly supported the plan. ...

After days of contemplation and discussion, I believe that Ruby has finally solved the pirate problem, for everyone. Ruby: I know, lets make a flag with a cake on it. I’ll make my favorite cake (chocolate cake with chocolate frosting and sprinkles and flowers on top) and we’ll put the flag up. Then the pirates will know that we have cake and they can come over and eat it. Then they will like us and won’t eat us or take our boat. ...

While we were eating dinner tonight (hamburgers… yes its relevant) the subject of pirates came up. Ruby is very concerned about pirates, and how they might steal her or eat her. She asked what we were going to do about pirates, so we (of course) took the opportunity to turn the question around… Parent: Do you have any ideas Ruby? Ruby (immediately) : I know, we could make a note that says “Pirates don’t steal our boat”, and we could put it in a bottle and send it to them, and then they wouldn’t steal our boat. ...