Kate Mason (00:00)

Do you ever lie awake at night wondering if there's more to life than ticking boxes and keeping up appearances? Now if fear isn't part of the equation for all of this, what bold step could you take tomorrow that might shake up your life a bit? When you're at crossroads, what usually stops you from moving on? Is it a fear of failing, a fear of judgment, not only from yourself but from others, or just not knowing where to start?

Now, if you close your eyes for just a moment, if you could redesign your life from scratch, what is the first thing that you'd change to feel more alive and more free? When you imagine real change, how do you hope it shapes your relationships and your own sense of self? Honestly, you don't have to be a natural risk taker to shake things up. Change isn't always easy and it rarely feels safe.

Believe me, I know, but even the smallest shift could push us forward. If life's starting to feel a bit stale or on repeat, ask yourself, what's one small step you can take to invite change into it? After all, it's the changes in life that help us grow as individuals and also in the way we show up for our partners and our kids and our friends. Hi, I'm Kate Mason and welcome to Parenting and Personalities.

This is the podcast that connects you to the ones you care about the most.

Today I'm thrilled to be joined by Erin Carey, founder of Rome Generation and an adventurer who swapped suburbia for sea. Erin and her family made the bold decision to leave behind a conventional life and sail around the world on their yacht. And they haven't looked back since. Now Erin's journey is full of rich stories, lessons and inspiration. In the conversation, we're going to find out what sparked this life-changing move, the realities of parenting and homeschooling at sea.

staying connected off-grid, and how sailing has shaped her family's growth in many profound ways. So you know what? Whether you're dreaming of adventure or you're just curious about life beyond land, this adventure is packed with courage, insight, and real joy, and you're gonna love it. Hi Erin, welcome to Parenting in Personalities. It's really lovely to have you with us today.

Erin Carey (02:31)

Hi, thank you so much for having me.

Kate Mason (02:33)

Now I went to a business networking talk and I heard you talk about what you had done with your life. And I was just kind of blown out of the water literally because I could not imagine doing anything as you have done that you're going to talk about today. So what I'd love to know is because you had done something so bold and, and adventurous, what did you do? How, what did your childhood look like and your

at early adulthood, was it as an adventurous time for you or were you a fairly quiet person?

Erin Carey (03:11)

⁓

It's funny, there's not one thing that I can say was responsible for making us do what we did. But you know, like, I guess the things that we did do, they were simple back then because life was much more simple back then. So we certainly weren't going on overseas holidays and you we weren't doing anything crazy, but

the little things like going camping, you know, we went on a holiday every year. That was very important to our family, even though, you know, half the time we probably couldn't afford it. We always went on a family holiday and it wasn't luxurious. We stayed in, in caravans or camping, or cabins. But I think that instilled a love of travel into me. remember mum giving me the, the trust or responsibility of choosing where we'd go on our family holidays sometimes.

That was before internet. So I'd remember looking through there must be in some sort of directory of all the caravan parks in Australia. And I used to be, you know, feel so excited choosing where we could go and I'd research it and read all about the destination. So I did love that. my dad was pretty adventurous in a, in a, you know, a normal suburban kind of way, I suppose. He loved sailing when he was younger, he was into motorbike riding.

So I definitely think I take more after my dad than my mum. My dad is a sailor and he would sail on the inland lake in Wagga Wagga. very different to what we went on to do, but I certainly had some experience sailing. But yeah, that's about the extent of it.

Kate Mason (04:53)

So did you take any risks in life itself? Like were you a risk taker in your own personal life with your husband or by yourself before you did this? I don't mean massive risks that were personal risks as such, but like in businesses or in buying and you spoke to me about buying and restoring houses and stuff like that.

Erin Carey (05:05)

I mean...

⁓

Yeah, that was probably, I mean, we, did subdivide a block when we were quite young. So I think that was probably a little bit out of the ordinary. I think I always knew that we wanted to be a bit different. I remember reading rich dad, poor dad on a plane very early on. And I think that was actually on our very first overseas trip. And that really switched something in my brain with, both of us.

And then, yeah, we, I've always loved travel. the minute that I was able to afford going on an overseas holiday, we went and did that. and we backpacked overseas for six months. went to match Pichu in South America for our honeymoon. So I guess a little bit. Yeah. And we renovated a few properties. So yeah, I guess. ⁓

Kate Mason (06:05)

Pretty adventurous. There are a few things that a lot of people wouldn't do and there's a lot of traveling that you've done that I certainly wouldn't do. I'm very sensing in what I like to do. I like to do what I can see and feel and I am a bit of a luxurious travel person. I'd rather stay a few nights in luxury than five weeks in camping. yeah.

Erin Carey (06:24)

Whereas with like most bang for our buck, we want to go away for as long as possible. We're prepared to do backpacking. Not to say that every, you know, every now and then we didn't splurge, but yeah, we, yeah, we went on a few trips with the kids. We did a few weeks in Vietnam and another few weeks in Malaysia when they were very young. ⁓ But nothing, you know, nothing for long periods of time.

Kate Mason (06:35)

And did you do that with your kids?

So can you tell us how this whole trip began? What you were actually doing and watching, which I think is cool.

Erin Carey (07:02)

Yep. So we, we were a regular family. I, you know, I like to say we were living in Largs Bay in Adelaide and we, one night we're just watching a documentary on Netflix that actually wasn't, you know, it wasn't something we prepared for. my husband just put it on. I wasn't even planning on watching it. And the documentary was Laura Decker and her voyage around the world. think it was called Maiden Trip.

she was 14 at the time. So we were both just like, wow, like I have a 14 year old right now and the thought of him sailing around the world just seems ludicrous. ⁓ so yeah, she sailed around the world. And so we sat and watched that documentary and at the end of the documentary, my husband and I both looked at each other and went, wow, let's do that. And that's kind of what we went on to do. We didn't sail around the whole world, but yeah, we got around part of it.

Kate Mason (07:59)

So can you tell me from going, sitting on a lounge and deciding that you're going to travel on a boat with your three children, what was the process? ⁓ because you're like I said, a very organized, you're a very organized person and you and I've done your type and you are a process person. So how did you plan the next two years from that point?

Erin Carey (08:23)

Hmm. ⁓ well, as I said, it was not, not something we'd ever done before. So we really had no idea what we were doing. So we started from scratch. I remember we moved straight to the computer and we Googled families sailing around the world because I didn't even know if it was possible. I thought maybe you had to be in the Navy and be in a ship to cross oceans. and then straight away we found some families that were doing it. And from that moment on, I thought, okay, well, if they can do it, so can we.

So that was really great. And actually one of the families that we found right at the beginning offered coaching, a coaching service and they had three kids and they were around the same age as our kids. ⁓ and they had sailed around almost the whole world. And so I remember bookmarking that and thinking, yeah, we'll come back to that because I'm a big believer in, in coaches and you know, using someone else who's done what you want to do.

fast tracking the whole process, you don't need to spin your wheels and try and figure it all out yourself when someone else can help you. So we got a lot of help from them, ⁓ but initially before we engaged the help, we kind of reverse engineered it. We didn't have any idea how much a boat would cost. So we started Googling, you know, how much is a boat? We didn't have any idea what size boat we would need or what kind of boat we would need.

But after a lot of research, we realized, okay, we probably need around a hundred thousand give or take. That was what a boat, a seaworthy boat that would allow us to cross oceans would cost. So we thought, all right, well, that's obviously so much money for a young family who didn't have any savings and didn't have any, you know, we had regular jobs. were both working for the public service. ⁓ but we're, you know, we were living week to week, essentially we, ⁓ a hundred thousand.

felt huge, but we didn't let it deter us. And then we obviously needed to take some sort of leave from our job or quit our jobs. ⁓ but because we were both in the public service, we both banked on being able to get leave without pay, which amazingly we both did get two years leave without pay. So we kind of had that, that part sorted, but you know, you then obviously didn't want to need live off as well for two years without working. So we had to figure that out. And we estimated again that we would need.

I think we were going on about $3,000 a month for two years. And don't quote me on what that adds up to right now, but that's the budget that we were going off. So we also had to come up with that money. And for me, money felt like the biggest hurdle. Everything else I was like, I'm sure we can figure everything else out, but how do you get that much money when it doesn't seem possible?

So then it just became like a huge exercise in figuring out how can we save a lot of money? How can we cut costs? What can we sell? What can we do? And we came out with so many solutions. We both got promotions in our jobs, which, you know, we probably wouldn't have gone for otherwise. So, you know, there was an extra $10,000, say, and we just kept adding all of this up every time we made.

Even $5 of savings, we would transfer that into our savings account and it just grew. We learnt, and it's amazing when you have this massive goal in mind, how things just open up and you start to see opportunities that you would never have seen before. So I think my sister-in-law had mentioned how they were going to host a university student and I'd never heard about that before and that you get paid to host them.

So of course we were like, yep, we want to know all about this as well. We ended up posting university students and they would live with us for six weeks or three months. And we'd get paid about a thousand dollars per student. So not a lot. We also had to feed them, but it worked out that we were making some money. So we'd, every time we got a student, we'd save that money up. It might've been more than a thousand dollars. It might've been a thousand a month even. And then.

towards the end, we were hosting two students at a time because we were like, we've got to make more money. ⁓ so we kicked the kids out of their bedrooms and students are all in the bedrooms and the boys are out in the family room. was like a big sleepover. put their bunk beds out there and they were, they were fine. loved it. ⁓ and it was actually really fulfilling having the uni students live with us. ⁓ we learned so much and

You know, since then I keep in contact with a few of them. I visited them, a couple of them overseas and yeah, so was really, it was special and didn't really feel like a chore at all. If anything, it was, it was a great thing for our family. we, you we looked at all of our subscriptions and memberships and cut out unnecessary ones. We refinanced our mortgage, so we were having to pay less and we saved the difference. we got, you know, probably new insurances and.

We took our kids out of private school and put them into public school that so, you know, there were so many ways that we were able to save that we didn't really realize originally. And we were prepared to make sacrifices because there was this big kind of reward at the end. So we're like, it's only two years. Well, at that stage, we didn't actually know how long it was going to be. Um, it was probably once we started getting the coaching that they were saying, they told us it was really important to set a date.

⁓ and that we found that to be very helpful because when you have like this open ended goal, it feels like it's too much. How long is a piece of string? What are we working for? How long have we got to keep making these huge sacrifices for? ⁓ so I think then we probably set a date. It was probably about 18 months in advance at that time. ⁓ and then I think it felt easier then because we knew that there was a, a end date in sight.

Um, and eventually we ended up saving 85,000. we were pretty happy with that.

Kate Mason (14:25)

That's pretty good. And what a, what a fantastic thought it is to be able to save like that and have so many different ways. Cause like you say, when you open something up, it often leads to something else, doesn't it? You know, the fact that you were looking at saving and making money at the same time, you say, promotions at work. I would never have really thought about that. students, do know people that do take students in.

The bonus to that is friendships, isn't it? At the end of it, know, providing you with a lovely host and they were great students, you know.

Erin Carey (15:03)

Can

you tell us? Perfect. I remember one arrived and we had the flu. We were so sick and we still had to pick them up from the airport and she had to stay in a room for like the first two days. We would put food in through the door. We were so, so sick. I was, I felt sorry for her, but in the end.

Kate Mason (15:23)

That's right. these are, but these are the things that really expand who you are as a person as well. It's a real growth period because these are things that you would never have done before. So how old were your children at that time?

Erin Carey (15:35)

Yeah. So when we first watched the documentary, the youngest was one. So we had a baby, one, four and five. And then we left two years later. So the youngest was three and I think about four, five, six, seven and eight, three, seven and eight. Yeah.

Kate Mason (15:55)

Although in a way, apart from the three year old, a perfect time to travel from the older to in a sense that, know, there's no missing out on schooling. There's no stresses around that. It's not really, it's not, travel would be much more important than any schooling they could do through that time. So can you tell us what you did sailing wise? Because you might've sailed on a lake with your dad or whatever, but sailing on open water and seas and stuff like that.

How did you prepare yourself for that?

Erin Carey (16:26)

Yeah, so we joined, or we didn't join, we went down to the local yacht club and just explain what we were doing. And ⁓ they introduced us to a couple of different boats who were participating in, you know, like Wednesday night round the buoy yacht racing. So we were invited onto a boat, which we then stayed on for the next 18 months. Every Wednesday we'd go out there during the season and participate in the, in the racing. I don't know if.

I learn a huge amount because racing isn't very different to cruising and it's also quite intimidating and scary. And I spend most of the time sitting on the rail, but I always loved it. I always had a huge smile on my face and just would think, Oh my God, this is so amazing. I can't believe that we're going to be doing this. Um, my husband learned probably quite a lot more doing, doing that. Um, cause he was actively involved in the running of the boat while they were racing. Whereas I just.

I was too scared, you know, the, it's high stakes and it's fast and everything's, know, if you make one mistake, everyone gets annoyed at you. look, I, I'm even after living on the boat for four years, I do not proclaim to be a great sailor. It's, it's something I intuitively can feel the boat and kind of know what needs happening, but I certainly needed my husband to be there to help with that.

Kate Mason (17:51)

Yep. So his role was definitely the sailing captain portion of it.

Erin Carey (17:56)

Yeah. So yeah, we did, we did that. ⁓ he did a Coxons course through the local Lake maritime college. I went and did a seaman ship course. did a C we both did a sea survival course where, know, we jump in fully closed in the winter and have to climb onto life rafts and learn how to let off flares and all that kind of jazz. we bought another big thing was we bought a little 21 foot.

trailer sailor. So we would go out every weekend and just muck around out on the bay, which is the ocean. And that taught us a lot, even though it was much smaller scale, it was great to just have our own boat and to be able to make mistakes and figure it out as we went. And my dad was instrumental in taking us out at the start and teaching us how to sail, teaching me again, because I didn't remember anything from when I was a kid.

Kate Mason (18:53)

And with the kids part of that learning process too, did they come out with you? Yeah, they'd come out. Yeah. Yeah.

Erin Carey (19:00)

Yeah.

So they come out on weekends and I loved that time. I remember loving getting out on the water and not being at home, not being able to work and not being able to clean or do any housework. I just loved being on the boat. Um, and so that, and I remember we'd always be like, Oh my God, I wish we could just go now. We just love it out here. Um, and so the kids were still little. They weren't really learning how to sail or anything, but

They got very used to the fact that we were going to live on a boat and it just became very normal to them. would always, the conversations would be, know, when we live on a boat or when we moved to the boat or, you know, when. So we bought the boat in November, 2017. So we originally watched the video or the documentary in December, 2015. So bought the boat.

Kate Mason (19:40)

When did you buy the boat?

Erin Carey (19:53)

just under two years later and it was, we bought it sight unseen. So the boat was in Grenada in the Caribbean and we, and like there was so many little synchronicities and things that happened that made us feel like we were on the right path. And one of them was the fact that, you know, the very first time we got on the computer, we found this coaching service who, if anyone's interested, they're called Sailing Totem, T-O-T-E-M.

Anyway, so we kept in contact with them for the, you know, the following two years and used their coaching service. And then because they were sailing around the whole world, they just happened to be in the Caribbean when we were ready to buy a boat. And then they just happened to be on the island of Grenada when we found our boat. So they were able to go and inspect up, expect it for us. ⁓ and.

We didn't feel like we could add anything more than what they could add. They'd been living and sailing around the world for 10 years by this stage. So, and we had built a relationship with them. So we trusted them. ⁓ so yeah, they went and inspected the boat for us and it, saved us money of not having to fly over there. ⁓ we felt confident in buying it sight unseen then, and it all worked out amazingly. ⁓ you know, there were couple of little things that were, we didn't know about, ⁓ but.

Overall, it was great.

Kate Mason (21:17)

So did you fly to the boat then? Yes. So you flew to Grenada, you flew there with the boys and got on the boat there and sailed from there. So you actually didn't have any familiarity with it before you. Not at Was it bigger than the other boats that you'd been sailing?

Erin Carey (21:24)

Cronida.

No, it was the same size as the boat we'd been sailing in the yacht racing, 47 foot. Obviously more than double the size of the little dinghy or the little trailer sailor we'd been sailing. But when we arrived, it felt enormous. We were just like, oh my God, because it was out on land. So it was on the hard stand on land and they always look bigger when they're out of the water. And we just arrived. So this was in February, 2018. So we owned it for a few months until before we went over.

And yeah, I remember we all kind of walked up to her in the boatyard. Well, we didn't even know which boat it was ours. We were kind of like, is it that one? Is it that one? We eventually figured out which one was ours. And then we went, oh my God, how on earth are we going to do this? And then we climbed up, we found a ladder, climbed on board and then went down into the saloon and went, oh my God, this is tiny. How are we going to live on here? So it was, yeah, felt enormous on the outside and small on the inside.

But after living on her for a little while, I very clearly remember thinking, this is plenty. This is all we need. I never felt like we didn't have enough room on the inside.

Kate Mason (22:45)

So minimalist, you know, we can live with very little once you.

Erin Carey (22:50)

Yeah,

so you couldn't buy anything because there was no room to bring extra things on board. you know, the most people could buy, you know, some new doona cover or a plant or something, but then plants are not really ideal because the minute they fall over all the dirt will spill out. So they were plastic plants.

Kate Mason (23:11)

So materialistic people forget, forget doing anything like this because you're not going to be able to buy anything on your trip. leaving the, you know, leaving the harbour there and you, know, three children in tow on a boat. So how did it all feel? I'm just sitting here thinking.

There's just no way. mean, apart from the fact I really don't like open water in any form. don't like being on cruises or anything like that. I'm just sitting here, my heart's in my chest listening to you thinking, Oh my goodness, you had to actually go out to sea. so can you tell us about what it was like getting it launched and then just getting out?

Erin Carey (23:51)

Yeah, look, we did it in baby steps. So when we first arrived, because we'd never owned a boat, sorry, never owned a yacht and had never, or didn't have much sailing experience, they wouldn't give us insurance. We knew all this before we arrived. But the only way that we could get insurance was by ticking off every single item on the insurance survey that the surveyor identified as needing to be fixed. Now boats are always broken.

There won't be a single boat out there that doesn't need jobs done to it. So to have to tick off, think we had 67 items was insane and just really unfair to be honest, because some of the things were like the carpet is damaged in this corner or the, the steering wheel cover, which, you know, the leather cover on the, on the wheel is degraded. It's like, none of that matters. That doesn't mean it's not seaworthy.

So at the start, we were very enthusiastic and my husband would work all day in the boat yard and I'd just go off on a trip around the island with the boys. We went and had adventures, you know, finding waterfalls and going to beaches and it was amazing. I loved that time. But after about six weeks of living in the boat yard, so the boat, when it's on the hard is about three meters up in the air, like on from the top to ground. Um, and

That's really dangerous for a three year old. And I actually had heard a story in the lead up where a child had fallen and died. And so that was in the back of my mind. ⁓ and actually went on to meet that woman and another crazy coincidence. But, ⁓ so we, every time we went up and down that ladder, we would put a harness around the boys and we want it. Dave set up like a pulley system and we'd lower them down and we'd pull them back up.

that got pretty old after six weeks. ⁓ we also didn't have a fridge because the fridge required water to run. So we couldn't have a fridge and we didn't have toilets because the toilets obviously can't flash onto the ground. ⁓ and we didn't have a holding tank. So.

Again, we were still very keen and it was very exciting for quite a while, but after about six weeks, it was also mozzie infested because we're in a muddy boatyard. I remember calling the insurance company and saying, can we please just move out, like splash into the water and move out into the bay? Let us just bob on anchor. At least we'll get the sea breeze blowing through our boat. We'll be on the water. Things are going to feel better once we get out onto the water.

And they did give us permission to do that. They covered us for insurance as long as we didn't go sailing. that then took, so we didn't actually know how to move our boat. We had no idea how to get it from it being slashed into the water to out into the bay. We could have guessed I suppose, but we felt very nervous in doing so. ⁓ But the beauty of the sailing community is everyone wants to help you. And we met so many amazing people and a couple.

we called our boat grandparents who kind of like took us under their wing and they'd have, they'd, the boys would come over for chocolate cake and they'd cook them spaghetti bolognese and they might've even had a sleepover. Like that's how fast you get to know people. they helped us move the boat. So we got it moved out into the bay, which was amazing. Although I do remember on day two sitting in the cockpit, like just kind of crying to my husband going, this is so much harder than I thought it would be.

We still don't have a fridge, you know, like now it's great that we're on the water, but how do we get to shore when we need food and how do we do all of these things? ⁓ and I was having a bit of a cry and I remember like just having my head in my hands. And then I looked up and a stingray literally jumped out of the water and flew through the air in front of me. And I never saw that again the entire time. So it's not like it's a common thing that happens, but I was like, okay.

Pull yourself together. That was a sign. This is amazing. You're very lucky. We will make this work. It's going to get better. It's always going to be hard at the start. And yeah, just slowly but surely we figured everything out. know, eventually we got the fridge working, so that was great. And then other little things got ticked off and we ended up being in that harbor for another six weeks, I think. So altogether it took three months until we could actually move our boat and go.

somewhere. ⁓ and so then we just bit the bullet like, guess we have to give it a go. So we just drove out of the, out of the bay. And I think we did like some figure eights out in the ocean and then drove back. We're like, okay, we've done that. We didn't die. We didn't crash or sink. And then, you know, the next time we'd go a little bit further and then eventually we sailed to the next Island. And that wasn't without issues. We.

lost our engine and we ended up having to be towed in by a friend and that was, it was nighttime and that was a huge thing. And then we didn't prepare the boat well enough because we didn't know how to. And so like all the books fell out of the bookshelves and yeah. And then the time after that we ran aground, but after that we seemed to get a figure it out and yeah, it all went pretty well after that.

Kate Mason (29:20)

So good, good to know your teething problems were all within reach of help or rescue as such. ⁓ when did you actually do a large expanse of water and what, what, what's the largest, longest distance that you ever went on this trip? And when did you do that? Was it halfway through the trip or how, how did you get confident?

Erin Carey (29:48)

Yeah.

It was just a lot of practice. luckily in the Caribbean, it's like the perfect cruising ground for beginners. And so that's why we started there. They always have trade winds. It's always blowing at like 15 knots, perfect conditions. there's hurricane season, so you have to do it all within the right seasons. ⁓ but the islands are all perfectly spaced out in that they're about a day, a day sail between each island. So we didn't have to do any overnight sails for quite a while.

Um, and there's a lot of cruises there and we knew that we wanted to have a community with lots of kids and there were a lot of kids around, which is amazing. Um, so for quite a while we would just do day sales, which would be, you know, it could be eight, 10 hours of sailing. And we learned quite a lot, um, during those times. Uh, so we got quite a way up the island chain. And then after that, we probably decided, right, let's try and do a night sale.

Night sales are so different because you're sailing into pitch black dark. It's like driving a car in the dark and you have to look at a screen to drive and you're relying on the screen. ⁓ so that was exhilarating. ⁓ as you can imagine the stars out in the sky and the sounds that you're hearing. And I remember on our very first night sale, cause you do it in watches cause you could both can't stay awake all night. So I would stay up for three hours.

and then Dave would go to sleep and then we'd swap. And on my very first night passage there was this like sound of water blowing beside the boat and I, you know, your heart sinks and you're like, my God, straight away what's wrong? Because you really get in tune with the boat and you get to learn all of the different sounds and you immediately know when something's not quite right. But it only took me a minute to realize.

It's dolphins. We've got to put a dolphin beside us. And so I got the torch and was shining it. Sure enough, there's dolphins blowing water out of their blowholes. And yeah, it was, that was really special. So yeah, we'd done the day passages. We'd done the night pass, a couple of night passages. And then we decided we wanted to cross the Atlantic. We wanted to go to the Mediterranean.

Kate Mason (32:03)

So tell me, how long does that take?

Erin Carey (32:05)

So that takes weeks at this stage. Keep in mind, the longest we'd done was two days, night, maybe like two days and one night. Or at the most we might've done two days and two nights. Can't quite remember, but that was it. We had not done weeks on end, but this was at the 18 month mark. So we'd been sailing all around the Caribbean for 18 months at this stage. We felt very confident. ⁓

knew the boat, like the back of his hand by this stage and I don't know, we just felt we were able to do it. In hindsight it probably sounds crazy and probably was crazy. So we prepared for about three months for that so that took a lot of work having to make sure we had all of the right safety gear and we replaced all the rigging on our boat and I think he like checked all of the chain plates, actually replaced all of the chain plates.

We did a lot of work to the boat and spent a lot of time making sure we had all the right safety equipment in place, all the procedures. did, you know, lots of practice and trainings. we were meant to have another guy come on board and another girl at like literally a week before we were leaving the guy pulled out. And so then we, all we had was one other young girl who was going to come with us. And then we were like up until the last minute we were.

going through like, what are we doing? Should we be doing this? Shouldn't we be doing this? It was a huge decision as I'm sure you can imagine. ⁓ especially now the guy pulled out who was meant to be, you know, Dave's helper and strong and able to help us out if there were any issues. And now we were just left with a young girl who was no better sailor than I was and no bigger or stronger than I was either. But we decided to do it and yeah, it was amazing.

Nothing went wrong. mean, a few things did go wrong, but nothing that we couldn't figure out. my husband's a very good problem solver. He was in the air force as an aircraft technician. he had all the skills of being able to fix the boat. If it broke, I knew that he could fix it. And that's one of the biggest hurdles, you know, you can learn to sail, but you can't call a mechanic when you're in the middle of the ocean. So if you can't fix the boat yourself, then yeah, yeah, you're not gonna.

farewell out there. yeah, that ended up being, we crossed from St. Martin in the Caribbean over to the Azores, which are an archipelago of Portuguese islands and kind of like in the two thirds of the way across the Atlantic off the coast of Portugal. And we did that in 17 days. So we sailed nonstop around the clock 24 seven for 17 days straight. And then yeah, arrived into the Azores, which is one of the greatest achievements of our life.

Kate Mason (34:56)

Wow. So tell me during that time as a parent, what did you do with the three boys?

Erin Carey (35:03)

Well,

it was great. do do? What do they do? Yeah, exactly. There's no internet back then. And if we do an ocean crossing again, there'll be Starlink. So it's so crazy to think that you could literally watch Netflix all the way across the Atlantic if you wanted to. But, what was a savior for us was audio books. So our kids listened to every single Harry Potter book. and Harry Potter was just, I'm sure when they grow up, that'll be like this.

Kate Mason (35:30)

Yeah.

Erin Carey (35:30)

Great

memory that they have of just listening to Harry Potter. was all very relaxed and chill. remember it feeling like being on like a retreat or something because there was no internet, there was no phone calls, there was no distractions from the outside world. And it was just our little family and we would just sleep and when we weren't on shift, relax, do cooking, we'd make cakes, we'd do, you know, play cards or.

drawing. ⁓ so the kids just did a lot of reading books and listening to audio books and drawing and baking. ⁓ and then we had the young girl, Kasha on board with us and she, she was like the nanny, suppose. So she was amazing. She would play with them and when we couldn't, she would do school with them. So yeah, they still had to do school.

Kate Mason (36:21)

was going to say, how did you, did you get like the education department often, you know, with schooling, they require, do they require you to homeschool when you go on something like that? There's no tied in that you have to do when you're away.

Erin Carey (36:37)

No,

because we went overseas, they were like, see ya. It was like, there was nothing we had to do, thank God. So yeah, I just told them we were going overseas and then when the minute we got back, I rang their school and they were allowed straight back because you know, they were in the zone and you can't not accept a student in the zone. yeah, thankfully that was really easy. I'm not saying homeschool is easy, homeschool is actually really hard. Um, but

Kate Mason (37:06)

I

always say that's why teachers were created.

Erin Carey (37:10)

Cause it's hard work. is so, so hard. So everyone else got a taste of it during COVID, but when COVID came around, were always, we were already like, good luck everybody. This is so hard. And you know, we'd already kind of been there and been doing that for a few years, but, it never really got any easier either. We, and we tried so many different things. I mean, we did go on to learn that our eldest had dyslexia, dysgraphia, autism.

And, you know, I think the younger one has dyslexia as well, which we're about to get tested. But, so we did have some learning challenges, but, know, there were beautiful moments of homeschooling where probably more my husband would, he was really good at, you know, creating really great conversations around history or religion or whatever they were learning about at the time. ⁓ and.

the boys just being engrossed in around the table and asking lots of questions and, or going on excursions. was my, you know, I was like, let's get out, let's go on an excursion. we went to some really cool places and the boys still talk about it, especially in the Caribbean. We learned a lot about slavery and we went to a rum distillery. doesn't sound very appropriate, but it was really interesting. The boys really enjoyed, we saw like plantation homes and learn all about.

Uh, you know, the slavery years and all of the challenges that they had and, um, about the torture that they went through and yeah. So very amazing experiences for them to not just read about it in a book, but be there and see and smell and speak to people who, know, who could give them firsthand accounts and that type of thing. it was.

At the time worried and we, you know, we always worried in the lead up to it, are we screwing up our kids? Are we going to mess them up? And then while we're on the boat, we would constantly worry, are we doing enough? ⁓ you know, maybe we need to do more. And then sometimes you'd need to take breaks because it would just, nothing was working and everyone was grumpy. And then you'd have two or three weeks off and then you'd feel guilty. we haven't done school in weeks. We've got to get back to school. It was a constant juggle and a constant battle. But I knew deep down that.

what we were doing for them was going to benefit them. I believed it and I still do. And it's only, not only recently, I mean, ever since coming back on the boat and going to parent teacher interviews, I hear the same thing every year. And I literally had their parent teacher interviews last night. And it's almost like the benefits are coming out more now.

that my eldest is 15. We've got, no, sorry, eldest is 16, 16, 15 and 11 now. So it's, it's the benefit, they're still reaping the benefits. Like my middle child is going on student exchange to France. Last night his French teacher was like, Oh my God, I'm so proud of Jack. He's like the perfect student to be going on student exchange. He's so outgoing and so much more mature than the rest of his peers. He will be fine over there. And then my.

eldest son, they were all saying, he's such a lovely boy. He's like the only student of his age that can talk to us like an adult. Like I love speaking with your son. He's so mature. He's so worldly. It's so obvious that, you know, he brings his experiences out in his work and his art teacher said to me, which I still can't believe she said, it's like speaking to an artist when I speak to your son. like, wow, are we talking about the same 16 year old boy here? so, and.

he's the one that has autism. His speech pathologist said to me the other day, said it's very clear that the travels Hamish has done has made him into, you know, the problem solver that he is, his ability to, you know, despite having autism, it's very mild. It's what they would say is Morris Burgess these days. But despite that, he is able to, you know, have

conversations and speak to adults and is confident and yeah, so I, I 100 % know that what we did has, has been beneficial for them. And if anything, we'll set them up to, to live a great life, I'm hoping.

Kate Mason (41:27)

you

Yeah, I'm positive about that. Look, we have to wrap up now, but that is, it's just an amazing adventure. I can't believe that you did it. We're going to talk more because I'm going to be talking to you next week. I'm going to be talking to you about where you went and the people that you came in contact with and how that changed your life when you returned. But the fact is, I do think that children benefit from really different experiences and build resilience and

come back more mature. So what would be something that you might say to someone who is thinking about doing something very different and our concern is often about our children too and will they cope and survive. So what did it really teach you about your kids and doing that?

Erin Carey (42:22)

Yeah, I think it's really hard to break free of society because we are all taught to get a job, go to work eight to 10 hours a day, put our children into care, you know, and then race around every evening, taking them to a multitude of sports. I don't know. I guess I just don't believe that. I don't believe that is what we're meant to be doing. I think our kids really just want time with us and

If you can figure out a way to break free, because I know we were very lucky that we had government jobs and then, then I created my business out there. the second time we went, ⁓ I, were lucky in that we had a location independent company, but, ⁓ if you can figure it out, do it. Don't wait. Like we only get 18 summers with our kids, steal them away. I don't believe they actually need their friends so much at a young age. I mean, of course, when they get to teenagers.

They do need friends, but there's so many people out there sailing. And if it's not sailing, traveling around Australia or whatever your adventure is, you know, going in house sitting or whatever you go and do, there's kids all over the world. They will be socialized. They will get more social interaction than if they stay here because when we came back, our children, you know, as harsh as it sounds, they had to dumb themselves down to fit back in.

because they couldn't go to school and talk like an adult. seemed weird. You know, they to start using bruh and skibbity and all the other stupid words that they use because they didn't fit in having normal conversations. ⁓ so yeah, just don't, don't second guess yourself. Don't, I know it's hard as it sounds, don't listen to everyone else because you will face.

opposition and challenge and your parents will probably tell you it's a mistake and your friends will probably tell you it's a mistake. Don't listen to them. It's not a mistake. Just do it.

Kate Mason (44:15)

Thank you for those wise words. And I think that's so true. You have to follow your own path. And like you say, the more time you spend with your kids, I really do believe too, that they love that. That is what they're there for. And it's great to have the time and the space and different places to do that in. It's been a real pleasure having you today, Erin. Thank you so much for being with us.

Erin Carey (44:38)

Thank you so much, Kate.

Kate Mason (44:48)

Thanks for tuning in today. Erin's story isn't just about sailing. It's about choosing a different life and proving that it's actually possible. If you're feeling that itch for change, here are three takeaways to grow. Start when you're ready. Erin's sailing experience was limited. She didn't have any money. She just had curiosity, a laptop, and the belief that if other people could do it, she could too. Design your life intentionally. Question

why you do avoid change. And you know what? If that normal path doesn't fit you, create one that does. You don't need permission. Back yourself and your kids. The world is a better classroom than we think. With love, structure and adventure, kids can thrive in ways that we often underestimate. And until next time, remember bold moves start with a simple yes. Thank you for listening to Parenting and Personalities.

If you enjoyed this episode, we'd love it if you could leave a rating and a review that would help others learn about the podcast. If you're interested in discovering more about you and your family's personality types, you'll find my book, Who is this Monster or Treasure in My House? on Booktopia or Amazon. If you have an episode idea, please send a note to thepersonalitycoach at gmail.com. Many thanks to our producers at Stories and Strategies, and we'll see you next time.