Tamaroak wrote:

My bride and I are considering taking a year off and doing the Great
Circle Route/Loop, a mere 5000 miles around the east coast, the Erie
Canal and the Tenn-Tom. We would take our boys who will be 14 and 15 and
home schooling them on the boat, using a prepared curriculum and a
satellite Internet connection.

Does anyone out there have any experience in this type of adventure?

I have not done this myself. I have observed many parents who have
done so in the course of living on the boat.

There's a program on TV about a dentist from Canada who took his
children on a circumnavigation (boat was called Ocean Wanderer and
that's the name of the series) starting when they were small. One
of them has become a professional golfer I believe, and the other one
has gone back to sea on a bigger boat because she thought she was too
young to really appreciate the initial part of the trip. They had
some problem with the boy (both children adopted) because he wasn't
very interested in schooling. Part of it I think was that the mom was
unsure of herself in this venue. It's kind of a hokey show IMHO, but
some of it is interesting.

I've met another couple from Canada who did a year on the boat - they
are teachers and took a year's sabbatical. They had two boys about
the ages of yours - one in middle school and one in 9th grade. The
journal of their trip on Carellen is here.
http://www.angelfire.com/sd/humpboattrip/
We met them in the Dismal Swamp
http://www.angelfire.com/sd/humpboattrip/ where the bow of our boat is
just visible on the left of their boat, and again in Oriental and then
again in St. Augustine.

There was a couple with a boat like ours (Jean Marie) that did a
circumnavigation with girls that were 10 and 14 and both of them
seemed to have turned out well.

Friends of mine who both taught middle school (and were very good
teachers BTW) until they retired early due to the restrictive policies
no child left behind, and lack of support for the teachers or any
possibility of discipline for the kids who did and said just exactly
what they wanted, took their grandchild down to the Bahamas with them
(she was living with them full time as her mom had no time for her)
last winter, and after they got back, she did better in school than
she has ever done before. They are down in Florida again this year.

I also saw some live-aboard kids in Marathon when we were there last
winter, The girls seem to miss the social life of school. Some of
them went to a local school while they were living at the dock for
several months.



grandma Rosalie