Life On the Water

Having never experienced life as a family on a sailboat before, Nico and I decided that keeping Mohini moored in Paradise Village Marina for the first few months would give us the opportunity to adjust gradually to our new reality. It was definitely the right decision!

Not only is Paradise Village located within a 5-star beach resort, giving us access to immaculate grounds, a shopping centre, bike trails for the kids, a beach, pools, showers, and a hospitality suite, it's also home to a thriving and eclectic community of boaters--cruisers, seasonal sailors, and permanent residents. Weekly potluck dinners with the marina community were a thing, as were pool and beach hangouts with kids and families on other boats. We quickly connected with some vibrant characters and settled quite happily into our little neighbourhood on the water.

Here's the kids dressed up for trick-or-treating with some other boat kids on Halloween:

Catamaran or Jungle Gym?

One of the things I worried most about in the lead-up to boat life was whether or not we would be doing the kids a disservice by cramping them up in such a small space. I knew our adventures would open the world to them in new and wonderful ways, but I was also concerned about the day-to-day limitations on their opportunities to run around and be active.

My worries were quickly dispelled!

It turns out that a 40-foot catamaran is essentially one gigantic jungle gym and Aaron and Yael were soon swinging from the rigging, jumping on the trampolines, and clambering up and down through all of the hatches all of the time. It's been a whole year, and this is still one of their favourite pastimes.

Of course, it also helped that they went to school every day, could go to the resort playground, ride their bikes, and have friends over to swim, but it was clear that Mohini provided a stimulating physical environment for the kids. We even hung a hammock and punching bag in the bow for those moments when the indoor energy got a little too intense:

Humpbacks, Egrets, and Crocs, Oh My!

When you move onto a sailboat on Mexico's Pacific coast, you won't see squirrels in your backyard--but you might have a 6-foot crocodile park its nose at the base of your sugar scoop. At least, that's what I glanced over to see one day while I was sitting in the cockpit working remotely on my laptop!

We also got to see plenty of stunning bird life in the local area, including Great Egrets and Blue and Yellow-Footed Boobies, help to release baby sea turtles into the ocean and, of course, see the stars of the show--Humpback Whales--almost every single time we left the marina. For Humpbacks, the Bahía de Banderas (Banderas Bay), on which Puerto Vallarta is located, is a winter playground as well as their calving and mating territory. On a few occasions we were lucky enough to see immense males leaping out of the ocean to impress the ladies. More frequently, we saw small pods of females and calves, and once a young calf joyfully danced around our boat. We were enraptured.

Building a Routine

Dreamy as it may sound, living full-time in a resort is not at all the same as being on full-time vacation. No doubt, we appreciated the amenities (when else in our lives would we ever have been able to host our kids' birthday parties at our very own water slide park), but there was also something surreal and, at times, disconcerting about living our day-to-day--working, driving the kids to school, cooking, cleaning, shopping, and doing laundry--while everyone around us was enjoying their one or two weeks of tropical vacation with abandon.

When our kids played with other children they met at the resort, their parents would comment how lucky we were to be pulling off this lifestyle--and I would think about the tremendous upheaval that ultimately brought us to this point in time and how we were exhaustingly busy from early morning until late night every single day.

Someone once told me that a vacation with young kids isn't really a vacation--it's a relocation, and it turns out that concept of relocation also applies to sailboat life with children. Wherever we are, we're parents first and foremost, and much of our time during our first winter season on Mohini was spent establishing rhythms and routines.

We customized the kids' bedrooms with wall decals and toy bins, found places for our library of hundreds of books, created a craft area in the starboard hull, and made pancakes on weekend mornings. We celebrated Jewish holidays at home and with our community, hosted friends for playdates, attended school events, and sailed over to the La Cruz de Huanacaxtle market for lunch on some Sundays. We stayed up late talking about how best to manage difficult behaviours, welcomed visiting friends and family to our boat, and carved out time for both of us to work. A lot. We continued completing projects on Mohini, worried about finances and our broken down car, and lugged bags of laundry to the lavandería. Without fail, Nico and I fell into bed completely worn out each night.

Here are a few snaps that show "roughy" (horseplay) in the galley, hamantaschen baking for the Jewish holiday of Purim, "camping out" on the bow, and weekend pancakes:

Our First Sailing Excursions

We finally made it out for our first day-sail on the Bahía de Banderas about a month after moving onto Mohini, and it was a magical. Everything about that day was perfect--the kids were harmonious, we saw whales breaching, the swells were calm, and the whole experience felt like one gigantic affirmation that we were, indeed, on the right path. I remember breathing deeply and not wanting the sun to set or the day to end:

In the following months, we sailed here and there, often taking friends out with us for a few hours at a time. Over winter break, we spent a couple of nights on anchor near Punta de Mita and in the springtime explored the bohemian fishing village of Yelapa, which is only accessible by boat:

As newbies to sailing life, Yael and I were often seasick (though Aaron seemed to inherit Nico's stomach of steel), and getting the hang of communications for tasks such as setting the anchor and docking the boat required some practice and finesse (full disclosure, I shed a few tears of frustration along the way).

With two kids constantly in tow, there also just wasn't nearly as much leisurely time or space as I'd imagined for learning the art and science of sailing, so I was primarily an observer and assistant to Nico as needed. That being said, I knew there'd be future opportunities to hone my skills and was more than happy to be gradually acclimatizing to the roll and sway of the waves.

Transitioning to Life On Anchor

As springtime approached, Nico and I knew it was time to plan our next steps and it wasn't long before we'd pinpointed the coast of British Columbia as the part of the world we were most drawn to explore first. Not only is the Strait of Georgia/Salish Sea (the water between Vancouver Island and mainland BC) renowned for its stunning beauty, remote wilderness, abundant marine life, and plethora of jewel-like islands, it's also incredibly protected and offers calm, sheltered waters absolutely ideal for novice sailors with potentially queasy tummies.

When Aaron was 18 months old, Nico and I had chartered a monohull sailboat out of Nanaimo, BC for 1 week (all we could afford) and explored as much as possible in that incredibly short timeframe. We were hooked and had always wanted to go back. The summer of 2024 seemed like the perfect moment.

The only slight hitch was that we were located in Mexico and the kids and I didn't yet feel ready to join Nico on an estimated 30-day offshore voyage. In the end, we decided to separate for one month in order to realize our summertime dreams. I would take the kids out of school and visit family in Winnipeg for the month of May while Nico took the Clipper Route north. At the beginning of June we'd reunite in Victoria, BC, ready to adventure leisurely into the Pacific Northwest's coastal allure.

Learn about Mohini's adventures northward in our next post: Journeying North.