Rebel at Heart

Apologies, the post hasn't been reviewed by my husband, the native English speaker of the family but it was well overdue.

As a lot of you already know, our friends Charlotte and Eric had to call for help as their younger daughter Lyra fell ill during their crossing of the South Pacific. Once she was stable they have been evacuated and their boat which had suffered some damage was sunk. They are now safe and sound in the US but lost their home they had worked so hard for and under a media storm and a very often unkind public eye.

Fortunately family, cruisers (including Woman Who Sail, a facebook group created by Charlotte) and friends are getting organized to help them out. Defending their choice of life on forums and commentaries on the news websites, fundraising for them (here is a link), collecting items… There are hips of good article or blog posts about that, here are a link to a few of them:
http://www.sailfeed.com/2014/04/crazy-people-taking-children-cruising/
http://landfallvoyages.com/2777/rebel-heart-reality-check/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=facebook
http://www.slate.com/articles/life/family/2014/04/rebel_heart_sailboat_rescue_eric_and_charlotte_kaufman_are_part_of_my_community.html

Those posts were written by families who live/have lived on boats with their family. As far as I am concerned, I can’t really write a blog post about cruising with kids yet, we are still waiting on our masts for that! But I have been hurt to hear certain things. 

At first I read the commentaries attached to the articles, then I stopped, because most of the time those people are faceless, nameless and so enraged that there cannot be any dialogue. I asked Ryan how come people could be that horrible and he actually found a study showing that internet trolls want only one thing which is to HURT in a sadistic way. What I don’t read cannot hurt me and I hope the same for them, because, those people are not just people to us. We know them. Ryan has sailed with them, Eric actually talked to him about going around the world by boat when Ryan was still living on land! He was Ryan’s best man and vice versa. Ryan is Cora’s godfather. I went to their wedding, shared meals with them, spent evenings with them, sat in Rebel's heart salon, we talked about the dream. We were very excited to see them arriving in New Zealand next season, to share that wonderful country with them, to have the girls playing together. Lyra and Stella are just a month apart…

There is no word to express how sad we have felt knowing that Lyra was sick, that the boat was having issues and that they might have to abandon it. We thank the NAVY for the successful rescue, and the care Lyra received. We are sad for Rebel Heart, a home is a part of the family, the place where they became a family. A place where they lived the 2 of them, and then 3 and 4, where they made memories, where they dreamt. On a boat nothing is standard, all have to be custom made and you can’t call the plumber everytime there is an issue. You learn to know it from top to bottom, you take care of it, you prepare it. But fortunately, as important as it is, a home is only the chest for the treasure and can be replaced. The family is safe and sound. They got out of it, to find lots of love but also crazy anonymous claiming to know what is better for their children. I was planning on answering a few nutty bullshit arguments here, but you know what, I don’t want to argue with strangers; I don’t want to justify what I don’t need to.
For the rescue : the men who actually did talk about it here, who better than them can tell?
http://www.dvidshub.net/video/328690/guardian-angels-rebel-heart-search#.U2xDINzpxcT

For the circumstances I don't know all the details but Charlotte and Eric will tell their story tomorrow, with their own words and the way they have chosen too
http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/525/seeking-outside-help

For the choice of life : I’m a teacher, I’m a Mum, I’m a traveler and I KNOW that there are tones of different ways to raise a child. I KNOW that none are perfect, and that kids are happy when they are loved, cared for and around happy parents. For some the dream is to see their children excel in music, arts or sports, for some the dream is to work hard so that their house is paid of and they can take care of themselves without being a weight to their children, for some it’s all about having all the latest innovations and be the first in everything, for some it’s about learning to respect nature and grow a green conscience, for others it’s about showing the world to their children, traveling in their home and make geography, history, languages alive subjects. There are good, bad and debatable in all those. I try to always keep that in mind, I wish others could too.

I have heard and read a lot of things from the cost of the rescue, to the extrapolations of what were the technical issues of the boat or what got Lyra sick, to me none of that matters now, even the internet trolls will get tired and jump on the next news wave. What I think about lies else where, as a human being, as a friend, a wife, a mother, and a cruiser. I wonder how do a couple, a family overcome this? What become of the dream? How and where do you settle after that? What is the meaning of home? How do you regroup, refocus, rebuild?

We wish you well, friends, we wish you time together to heal and live past that. We wish you laughing healthy running (swimming?) around little mermaids. We wish you to find a new place to call home wherever it will be. We wish you strength, calm, excitement, warmth, coziness, friendship, lightness, success, and anything you might need. And of course WE WISH YOU LOVE in your Rebel Hearts and hope to see you soon.