Call of the Family
01-05-07
“Adventure: the pursuit of discomfort, followed by the smug recollection of it.”
Family thinking of the folk back at home
Cruising puts an ocean between you and everyone else’s life, and (depending on your relatives, obviously) that can feel gloriously liberating. No school runs, no traffic, no slow death by small talk about bin collections. But distance cuts both ways. Sooner or later, you get that call, the one that starts with, “Mum’s not doing well…” and suddenly freedom can feel a lot like exile.
You’ve crossed oceans, rebuilt engines with butter knives, and navigated bureaucratic nightmares with the patience of a saint. Yet a single phone call from home can unravel the whole dream. You start telling yourself you’ll visit soon, once cyclone season passes, or after the next passage. But the updates keep coming, and the excuses start sounding thin even to you.
You’ve crossed oceans, rebuilt engines and navigated bureaucratic nightmares. Yet a single phone call from home can unravel the whole dream
The Weight of Absence
Then guilt comes knocking. You start noticing how many birthdays, weddings, and medical scares you’ve missed. Parents who once seemed immortal now look frail. Nieces and nephews grow from babies into actual people. You begin to feel like an exotic relative from a parallel universe, the one who lives “on a boat somewhere” while everyone else gets on with life.
We’ve seen it happen: cruisers turning around mid-voyage because a parent’s ill, or there’s a new grandchild, or a family feud that needs mending. The sea teaches independence, but it doesn’t make you immune. Cruising friends are brilliant. Funny, generous, gloriously unhinged. But they drift in and out like the tide, while family remains the harbour you eventually steer back toward. However reluctantly.
Cruising friends are brilliant. Funny, generous, gloriously unhinged. But family remains the harbour you eventually steer back toward
The Shock of Returning
But the sea rewires you. Your ears tune to wind shifts no one else even registers. Back on land, people talk about mortgages and kitchen extensions and you have no idea why any of it matters.
A few months ago, you were diving to cut fishing gear from your propeller shaft and re-aligning the engine in what was essentially a war zone. Now you’re arguing about laminated worktops.
Out there, worth is measured differently. Every meal, mile, and drop of water is earned.
A few months ago, you were diving to cut fishing gear from propeller shafts and re-aligning engines. On land, everything’s effortless.
On land, everything’s effortless. And maybe that’s the problem. You flick a switch and there’s power. Twist a tap and out gushes drinkable water. There’s more choice in a single supermarket fruit aisle than you had in an entire country. The first time I walked back into a supermarket, I genuinely felt like making snow angels in the freezer aisle. And yes, flushing a toilet with fresh water felt borderline criminal after spending time with displaced people waiting days for a truck or donkey to deliver anything remotely drinkable.
The Strange Desire for Normality
Perhaps that’s why, eventually, many of us start craving not just family, but the blessed predictability of normal. School runs, shopping lists, and the bureaucratic certainty of things that don’t explode or sink. After years of improvisation, there’s something almost intoxicating about a life that doesn’t depend on the wind or your mechanical aptitude to survive. Sending the kids off to be institutionalised while you concentrate on yourself for a while. Freedom’s brilliant, until you’ve had so much of it you forget what stability feels like.
Many of us start craving the blessed predictability of normal - a life that doesn’t depend on wind or mechanical aptitude to survive
Still, you can’t simply return to “normal.” Back on land, we found ourselves sitting at a proper family dinner for the first time in eight years. Nobody bracing their knees against a bulkhead or poking despondently at the questionable offerings on their plate. Just family. Loud, chaotic, wonderfully ordinary. After years of storms, diesel leaks, and eating standing up or wedged in place, it felt joyful. Not because of what was on the table (though the roast beef, Yorkshire puddings and bottle of supermarket Merlot tasted like a Michelin-starred miracle), but because of who was around it.
The Two Lives You Now Hold
Cruising’s a moveable feast. You bring the salt and improvisation home with you. You can hang up the flip-flops or foul-weather gear and rejoin the family circus, but the sea never quite leaves your blood. Adventure isn’t always “out there” and freedom isn’t always escape. Sometimes it’s knowing you had the courage to go once, and the courage to come back. Not choosing one life over the other, just knowing both are yours, and you’ve earned the luxury of choice.
The Wanderers Return
Family. Loud, chaotic and the roast beef, Yorkshire puddings and bottle of supermarket Merlot tasted like a Michelin-starred miracle
Maybe Homer was onto something. Every voyage circles back to the same place: home and family. We were just Odysseus with fewer gods, more maintenance, and roughly the same number of questionable decisions. But unlike him, there’s no hero’s welcome at the dock. Just family, politely unimpressed, wondering why it took you idiots eight years and all your savings to do what a budget airline could manage in no more than a day.
You return older, saltier, a little frayed around the edges. And somewhere between the gravy boat and the laughter, you look around and realise this was the destination all along. The sea changes you, but it leaves you grateful for the only things that ever really mattered: a loving family, and a safe place to call home. And you’re finally content.
Until the wind starts whispering again.
If you want more straight-talking tales from life afloat, and information about how the call of family and the need for stability can lead to the end of the cruising dream, then you’ll love our upcoming book. We're inviting early readers to join the pre-launch crew and get behind-the-scenes access as we wrestle it into shape. It’s honest, unfiltered, and occasionally useful. Sign up here to get involved, give feedback, and be part of something that’ll either be a bestseller or a brilliant cautionary tale.
