Even where it’s endless summer, the weather rings the changes
Issue 77 : Mar/Apr 2011
My son’s education is lacking. Now in his ninth year of homeschooling, he’s earning A grades in physics, Spanish IV, and algebra II yet he doesn’t know the seasons.
For the last eight years, we have been sailing around on our 34-foot Creekmore, Eurisko, mostly in the Caribbean. So it’s not that his life doesn’t have its different seasons — it does. Most important, there are hurricane and non-hurricane seasons. He can recite the official dates when these begin. He knows Florida was hit with four hurricanes in 2004 and that Emily devastated Grenada nine months after Ivan surprised that island nation and all the boaters who were there (because everyone knew Grenada was south of the hurricane belt).
His life is also dictated by tourist season, closely related to hurricane season and coinciding with work season. When the hurricanes are gone, the tourists come and it’s time for us to work a few months to make the money to live on while we hide during hurricane/non-tourist/non-work season.
Other seasons in his life are also weather-related. To him, winter means not snowmen and skiing but, rather, Christmas winds and surfing. In summer on St. Croix, the winds go south; fall in Trinidad means we haul out. But now that we are in Panama, ask him what season August is in and he’ll tell you, “It’s in the rainy season.” Singing the changes
I have tried to help him by employing the teaching technique of words put to music, using the old James Taylor tune, “Winter, spring, summer, or fall . . .” Instead he recites, “Spring, summer, winter, and fall. Right, Mom?” As his mother and teacher, I feel doubly responsible for his lack of knowledge. Where did I go wrong? How could my 17-year-old not know that spring follows winter, that leaves turn beautiful colors in the fall, and that summer (not the entire year) is warm?
My husband laughs at my concerns, “I certainly am not going to apologize for not exposing him to seasons.” I suppose what he experienced during his childhood more than makes up for this particular lapse in his education. He knows which trees sloths like to hang out in and can identify an oropendola by its call. He has smelled land before we could see it after 10 days at sea and heard dolphins breathing on moonless nights when the only way to locate them was by the bioluminescence they sparked as they danced along beside us.
Besides, I have to agree with him when he asks, “How am I supposed to remember all that?” After all, his memory is so bad, he still thinks he likes snow.
Connie McBride , her husband, Dave, and their three sons have been living aboard their 34-foot Creekmore, Eurisko, for 10 years. Now that two of the boys are in college, Connie has time to post news and views on cruising on her website www.simplysailingonline.com.
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