The Cruising Cartoonist: (sea) monkeying around
“How do you earn money while you’re cruising?” is one of the top ten questions I think I get about this life, and my friend Sarah has by FAR the coolest answer: she’s a cartoonist and can work online from anywhere that has internet, keeping her family happily on the move in their nomadic life. I’m a big fan of Sarah’s ‘toons (if you haven’t seen 12 Reasons Why I Love Living On A Boat, and then 10 of The Most Annoying Things About Living On A Boat, just click here and go read them now. I’ll wait. tap tap tappity tap…).
We met back in 2012, when our family was on the Brisbane river; Sarah, husband Carlos, daughter Sydney (now 10) and son Indi (7) were living aboard in nearby Moreton Bay. This month, after four years of cruising coastal Australia and building up the cruising kitty, Sarah and family are bound for Indonesia. They’re planning to deliver bundles of school supplies to some of the poorest schools in the world. It’s among the world’s worst because a lot of funding ends up in the pockets of officials instead of being spent on school supplies. It doesn’t take much to make a difference in one of these tremendously underfunded classrooms! The Sea Monkey crew is raising funds with an IndieGoGo campaign to bring bundles of supplies to schools along their route– please donate if you can, or spread the word if you can’t, because this is a powerful way to change lives with very little effort on YOUR part.
Boatschooling for the squids on Sea Monkey follows a similar natural learning bent to what we practice on Totem. I did a little Q&A with the kids to introduce their family and their plans, illustrated by Sarah. I was going to edit some of my dumber questions out, but actually, there’s nothing quite so awesome as the honest unfiltered responses from a 10-year-old kid- so here’s the full text!
Tell me a little about your boat; what you love about it, what you would change if you could.
We live on a Morgan out island 41 I love that our boat is big with lots of hatches so we can climb in and out of and a big flat deck up from that I can practice my circus tricks on.
If I could change anything I would have the boom a bit higher so that I can practise my ribbon tricks.
How do you like living on a boat? what do you think makes it better or worse than living on shore?
You can have more adventures, it’s less bad for the environment and you don’t have to pack for a trip.
Most people you meet probably ask what you do about school. So, what do you do for school?
We learn maths and writing everyday, but apart from that we are free to work on things that we find interesting. When we are on the move we learn by exploring and learning about different cultures. We also work on fundraising projects, the latest project, we are raising money to buy school supplies and deliver them to remote schools as we sail South East Asia.
What was the best day on the boat ever?
I don’t know what my best day ever was, we have a lot of great days.
What’s your favorite thing to do on a rainy day?
Stand out side in the rain.
What do you do when the weather is rough?
Sit outside in the breeze.
You’re going to Indonesia! what are you looking forward to about being there?
Seeing new things, do new things and meet new people.
What do you think other kids will be like in Indonesia?
Very happy and love to play.
If you could sail on your boat to any place in the world, where would you go?
Antartica or where they still kill whales and stop the whaling fleet
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Hopefully we’ll get to share an anchorage again someday with Sarah, Carlos and the Squids! Please take a look at their Pencils for Kids campaign, the first of this family’s planned Green Gorilla Project fundraisers, and use the social buttons on their campaign page to spread the word.
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