Welcome aboard! • Welkom aan boord! • ¡Bienvenido abordo!

Mollymawk is a 50 foot (15 metre) steel ketch built by her crew in South Africa – and in Namibia, St Helena, the Cape Verdes, Spain, and the Canary Islands…
She is home to a family of five – plus the dog – who journey in a haphazard fashion, in the half-built boat, following their whims from island to island or across the ocean.

Mollymawk‘s crew have been variously described as, “lucky’, “talented”, “an amazing family” and “a bunch of weirdos”. Personally, we think we’re a fairly ordinary family who just happen to have found a healthy, affordable, and perfectly legal way to escape from traffic fumes, consumerism, television, raincoats (and clothes in general), news about the state of the economy or the latest teenage murder, peer pressure, petrol prices, and a great many of the other problems appertaining to the average Western lifestyle. Including school.

Latest aticle : Cuba, Part III – Cruising the North Coast

Liveaboard Family

The Mollymawks haven’t “taken time out” so that we can make a turn around the Atlantic or around the globe. We’ve been living like this for more than 20 years, so it’s really the only way that we know. We travel wherever and whenever we can, breaking the journey to earn our living when we must, and popping home to England on a regular basis in order to keep in touch with our folks. So far as the rest of the world is concerned, we are drifters – but in reality we are on a mission. Ever since the skipper first met his mate (long since promoted to Admiral) they have been on their way to Tierra del Fuego and the Chilean canals…

At one time we almost made it. Full details of that journey and of the misadventure which ended it can be found in A Family Outing in the Atlantic.

Mollymawk was named for the black-browed albatrosses which accompanied us on that first, ill-fated voyage to the Southern Ocean. She is bigger and stronger than our previous yacht and will therefore be better able to cope with whatever the Roaring Forties and the Frightening Fifties throw at us. And, hopefully, we will have finished building her before we get that far south.

A Window on the Cruising Lifestyle

This website is an online scrapbook in which we report on our travels and adventures. It works in the same way as your email inbox, or any other news website, with the articles piling up on top of one another chronologically. The oldest ones will be at the bottom of the list.
The photos can be enlarged by clicking on them. To get back to the text click again on the picture.
Please note that the writings, photographs and entire content are subject to copyright. If you want permission to reproduce something, please get in touch.

Bearing in mind the nature of our lifestyle, it probably goes without saying that Caesar, Xoë, and Roxanne are all home-schooled. Caesar once spent about two weeks at a school in St Helena, in the South Atlantic. Xoë has sampled both the English school curriculum as applied in St Helena and that of a Spanish school. Two weeks of each was quite sufficient to enable her to form an opinion of The System. Based on the reports received from her elders and betters, Roxanne has decided that she will keep right away from formal education.

Despite the fact that none of them has been to school the kids all seem to do okay – as this website surely demonstrates. It was built by Caesar, whose skills with the computer are already legendary amongst family and friends. Caesar is entirely self-taught in this arena. He has had to be, because his shipmates hardly know a server from an ISP, or a file from a folder. (In fact, to be honest, the senior officers couldn’t tell you what any of those four words mean, in the context of a computer.)

Rummage around the site and you’ll find evidence, too, of Xoë’s literary leanings and Roxanne’s ability to make the insect world sound delightful.
This website takes over from the children’s earlier production: The Mollymawk Times. If you would feel more comfortable sitting in your easy chair, with the “magazine” in your lap, feel free to print out a copy. Just don’t print it out in anybody else’s magazine – or we’ll send the ship’s dog round with instructions to dig up your daffodils.

If you would like to know more about home-schooling, start with the Sea School article, penned by our illustrious admiral.

If you have any questions regarding the cruising lifestyle, you might find the answers on our Q & A page. If not, feel free to send them along and we’ll see if we can help.

If you are a rich tycoon and you would like to leave us some money in your will, please follow this link.