your heart will melt Latest and the LAST video of our Kimberley trip - 3.5 months off grid and off the chain! Bruised battered and broken we make our final push to fix our motor and make it across the notorious Boneparte Gulf AKA "The Blown Apart Gulf".
I lived aboard with my two kids for three years. It was a wonderful time in our lives. Whilst I like the fact that a dad is caring for his daughters, you simply don't ever take kids offshore in a dodgy boat - pulling up the engine with a halyard because the engine mounts are no good is super dodgy. The rest of the boat looks pretty tired too. Then you go across one of the most remote regions in Australia with the boat in poor condition.
A good dad simply wouldn't do this - you never put your kids at this much risk. Stay in Darwin, get them flown to their mum or your parents and do it yourself, but I think it is awful parenting to have a dodgy boat in a crocodile area with no possibility of quick help on a poorly maintained boat. I think there are people out there who do this type of thing - I just wish they would not publicise it. We found that our boat needed singlehanding most of the time we travelled - me sailing the boat and my wife doing more parenting stuff. Even on a good solid boat I couldn't care properly for kids when sailing.
When I was teaching at a school in Hurstville in the 90s we had a student who was being a little naughty. During one of the times we were talking about him soneone said something like "His background is terrible, he lives on a boat" I was living on my boat at the time. But Dad was a bad dad and had left the young kid (about 5) in charge of his younger sister when the little sister got hurt badly on the boat - Dad wasn't doing his job of keeping an eye on them and it seemed to affect this young bloke a lot. I reckon single parenting with really young kids on a boat is stupid. When we left with our baby we had one of us ALWAY with our baby when he was awake - never a second went by when we didn't have him in sight. That is what you have to do until they can swim well, really well. Later with our two boys we would do a lot of letting them wander off and spy on them. BUt that was on the east coast, with two parents, lots of safe places to go and a new boat. A long way from what this guy is doing.
A few years ago a large family got pulled off a boat by DOCS after one of the kids drowned after falling overboard. The boat was a mess. Kids deserve really good care in such a dangerous environment as the ocean, but if you have a good safe setup and attentive parents, the rewards for them and you are huge.
www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7235051/Life-aboard-yacht-little-girl-10-siblings-drowned-Sydney.html
I and many of our friends have brought up kids from 6 weeks to 14 years of age on boats. It can be a fabulous way to bring them up and they learn so much - but be safe please. Don't put their safety on so much jeopardy because you want to go and live something special. You will do enough worrying on a great boat with two of you looking after the kids.