Sailing Positive Waves

Sailing south down the lake. From the middle of Lake Vänern, we had about 90 nautical miles and one more canal before we were back in coastal waters. The Trollhätte Canal is a commercial canal that is open year round and generally uses as much of the Göta Älv river as possible to link the lake to the sea. From the lake we stopped in Vänersborg and then continued south to Trollhätten. The city marina is on an island with a beautiful park that has barbecue areas, a sculpture garden, walking trails, and a phenomenal playground. The kids played on the playground for hours every day.  Foggy sunrise in  Trollhätten. The playground in  Trollhätten. We're focusing on keeping this kid smiling and getting adjusted to the cruising life.    Trollhatten was a great place to tie up and spend a few days. Matilda was still upset about leaving Mariestad and so far she isn't convinced about the cruising life. She prefers to stay in one place, all the time. Pretty much the antithesis of the life

While the kids loved Mariestad and wanted to stay there for a year (or forever!), we were ready to move on. Hans and I have been looking forward to sailing around the islands on the west coast of Sweden, not to mention possible lobstering and Hans promises cod dinner every night! It has been fun to be tied up to the city dock in a small town, within walking distance to basically everything we need, but I much prefer to wild anchorages at uninhabited islands. Not to mention the fact that we need to get out of the middle of Sweden before it starts to get too cold. And icy. The first 2/3 of our trip across Sweden was through the Göta Canal; the second half will take us through the Trollhätten Canal. Much more commercial than the Göta Canal, and open year-round. After Hans had been back on the boat for a few days, we broke the news to the kids that we were leaving Mariestad. We promised them uninhabited islands, castles, and a big science museum in Gothenburg.  One last fika in Mariestad.

Taking on the world, one pandemic at a time. We left Texas a little over two months ago and moved aboard abroad. (Say that 3 times fast.) The past two months have been quite a whirlwind. Fun, but also exhausting. We really needed to stop sailing, stop adventuring, stop socializing, and start living on the boat like it's our home, not just the vessel to travel the world. The past couple weeks have given us the time to do just that, albeit without Hans. He's been in Wisconsin for two weeks, working his monthly shifts to fill our cruising kitty. We parked the boat in Mariestad, Sweden, waved goodbye to Hans, and started creating some daily routines. The cathedral in Mariestad. The kids really needed some time to figure out what their new daily life was going to look like. We started homeschool in earnest, organized and reorganized the boat, created some daily and weekly schedules, started chores and allowances again, I've started running again (but sadly my runs keep logging i

The kids' "village" out on a peninsula at the nature reserve. They each made their own shelter, a community fire pit, and two flat rocks for community meetings (out of the picture).  We officially started our home/boat school this week. I've been researching different curriculums and strategies for so many months now so I'm happy to finally stop thinking about it and actually start doing it. The most useful resource I've found has been fellow boat-mom Kate Laird's book, Homeschool Teacher . Her adage: "unschool when you can, teach when you must" resonates with me and I've looked at different curricula with that in mind. After the failed experiment with schooling at home during the pandemic last spring, I had a good idea how our kids wanted to learn. Structure but freedom. Worksheets but creativity. Cute and fun was interpreted as gimmicky. We're starting with Math Mammoth , Brave Writer , a family read-aloud book for history that offers