All at Sea at Fifteen

The time when my Mum told school I wouldn't be there for two months so I could go sailing - at 15 years old, on a boat built in the 1850s, with a group of people we didn't know.

Me at the helm of the Klaraborg, steering using the compass, complete with hair rendered green/blonde by sun and salt water,

Hey Mum and Dad, can I please take a term off school and go sailing? With a bunch of people you’ve never met. On a boat built in the 1850s? That requires constant maintenance to plug leaks? Down the remote west coast of Western Aus…