by Erik Orton
Praise for
SEVEN at SEA
“Erik and Emily Orton are extraordinary not only at telling their five children how to live, but ‘showing them.’ In this fascinating real-life story of spending an incredible year fulfilling a dream to sail 2,500 miles from the Caribbean Islands to New York City in a catamaran, they skillfully show that is it is possible to live big on a shoestring budget while giving their family an astonishing education in adventure, creativity, purpose, and grit. With great intention they embraced risk and some pretty breathtaking adversity, which changed and refined them all in ways that will leave the reader full of admiration and wonder.”
—Linda and Richard Eyre
#1 New York Times Best-Selling
Authors of Teaching Your Children Values
“We don’t need more stuff to be happy . . . we need less. The lessons of love, determination, and dreaming big wait for you in this adventure on the sea. You will find yourself sailing through each page, lost in the beauty of this family’s voyage. It gives you the courage to do the same in your own life’s travels.”
—Chester Elton
New York Times and Wall Street Journal
Best-Selling Author of The Carrot Principle and All In
“I LOVED IT! Absolutely loved it. Erik and Emily Orton engagingly narrate the exploits of their family as they disrupt their conventional New York City life for an adventure at sea, unfazed by the challenges of five children, one with special needs. They can’t imagine everything that might go wrong, but it will anyway. They won’t persuade you to spend a year on a boat—at least, they didn’t persuade me—but they will seduce you into imagining boldly and envisioning setting sail on an adventure of your own. They will persuade you that ‘unconventional’ is a synonym for ‘individual’ and have you contemplating why you would accept an off-the-rack version of your life when you can tailor-make your own. You’ll finish Seven at Sea daring to seek a discovery-driven voyage to your dream life, or the dream-of-a-lifetime. A fun, inspiring read.”
—Whitney Johnson
Best-Selling Author of Disrupt Yourself and Dare, Dream, Do
“We’re all on a journey. The Ortons’ storytelling of their particular path guides all readers—not just those who dream of seafaring—through lessons on living, loving, and life. They share their hurdles with candor and warmth, and just enough discomfort to remind you they’re real: stretching beyond their comfort zone in the joyful and daunting extremes of life on an adventure. The way that Erik and Emily consider, evaluate, and take on challenges they face is instructive for all, and required reading for those who dream of adventuring as a family.”
—Behan Gifford
Coauthor of Voyaging with Kids—A Guide to Family Life, featured on
the Today Show, CNN, Business Insider, and Inside Edition
“I love nothing more than seeing someone put his or her mind to something, and then make it happen. Well, that’s not entirely true—I love nothing more than seeing a family put their mind to something, and then make it happen. This is a great story of a loving family working together to fulfill dreams that one of them had—and that the others just didn’t realize they had yet.”
—Patrick Schulte
Head Writing Bum at Bumfuzzle.com and
Cofounder of Wanderer Financial
All photos courtesy of the authors except as noted below.
Pages 4–5: mandritoiu/shutterstock.com; pages 62–63: BlueOrange Studio/shutterstock.com; pages 102–103: Uladzik Kryhin/shutterstock.com; pages 156–57: ju.hrozian/shutterstock.com; pages 252–53: pisaphotography/shutterstock.com; photo section: Lisa Torkelson, John Alonso, and © Ty LaMont Mecham.
© 2019 Erik Orton and Emily Orton
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without permission in writing from the publisher, Shadow Mountain®, at [email protected]. The views expressed herein are the responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily represent the position of Shadow Mountain.
Visit us at shadowmountain.com
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Orton, Erik, 1974– author. | Orton, Emily, 1974– author.
Title: Seven at sea : why a New York City family cast off convention for a life-changing year on a sailboat / Erik and Emily Orton.
Description: Salt Lake City, Utah : Shadow Mountain, [2019]
Identifiers: LCCN 2018047098 | ISBN 9781629725512 (hardbound : alk. paper)
Subjects: LCSH: Orton, Erik, 1974—Travel. | Orton, Emily, 1974—Travel. | Sailing—Caribbean Area. | Sailing—Atlantic Coast (U.S.) | Caribbean Area—Description and travel. | Atlantic Coast (U.S.)—Description and travel. | LCGFT: Travel writing.
Classification: LCC GV776.23 .O75 2019 | DDC 797.12409163/65—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018047098
Printed in the United States of America
Lake Book Manufacturing, Inc., Melrose Park, IL
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Cover photos: The Orton Family and ICHIRO/Photodisc/Getty Images
Back/flap photos: The Orton Family Book design: © Shadow Mountain
Art direction: Richard Erickson Design: Heather G. Ward
For our crew:
Karina, Alison, Sarah Jane, Eli, and Lily.
You will always be our greatest adventure.
Introduction
Oyster Pond, Saint Martin, Caribbean
20 Days aboard Fezywig
ERIK
I pointed Fezywig out of the channel for the third time in three weeks. “Okay, kids, hang on,” I called across the deck. Before we arrived at Oyster Pond in Saint Martin, I’d had no idea we were picking up our boat from one of the most treacherous coves in the whole Caribbean: a narrow channel weaving through jagged cliffs, submerged reefs, meandering buoys, and direct exposure to waves rolling in across the Atlantic Ocean. Now I knew what was coming, and I was scared spitless.
Emily turned up the music, and all five of our kids started singing “Rox in the Box” by the Decemberists. We’d been singing this haunting, jaunty song for years as our family had learned to sail. Karina, our oldest at sixteen, dusty blonde and round-faced, stood across the cockpit, her eyes riveted on the channel. Alison, fourteen, with cropped copper hair, looked up the mast to check the wind indicator. Sarah Jane (or SJ or Jane, but never Sarah). twelve and already turning platinum blonde, swung from the canvased bars covering the cockpit. Eli, eight and gangly, was our one boy. Lily, six, with her almond eyes and apple cheeks, was the end of the line. Eli and Lily couldn’t swim. That’s why they were tethered with harnesses to jack lines running the length of the boat. Emily steadied herself in the doorframe between the galley and the cockpit. Her smile was confident, but her blue eyes were full of questions. I did my best to smile back.
We sang loudly as the boat pitched and the bow pounded into the oncoming waves. Singing kept our minds busy and nausea at bay. We got through the pin buoys and out into open water. I turned the boat toward the island of Tintamarre, which put us sideways to the waves. That’s when my queasiness returned, but I was determined. Even with only one working engine, we weren’t spending another night in that hot, stuffy anchorage waiting for a mechanic who might never show up.
Putting up the sails would have moved my nausea to the next step, and it was a short trip, so we motored the few miles to Tintamarre. A bunch of boats were already tied to mooring balls along the main beach. There was one ball free, so we went for it. Karina and Alison were at the bow with the boat hook ready to snag the line. Getting the mooring ball on the first try had become a
source of pride for me. We’d practiced it constantly since our earliest family sails. Karina and Alison were our best snaggers. But despite my, ahem, nearly impeccable driving, they missed it. I wasn’t a good enough captain yet to stay calm. I had something to prove. With the wind pushing the boat sideways and only one engine, I wasn’t about to go around for another pass. I shouted up front, “I can’t believe you guys! Alison, take the helm!” Emily conveyed the second half of the message, and Alison took the wheel. Jane kept Eli and Lily out of the way. She knew the “Mad Dad” look when she saw it. I jumped down to the stern and grabbed the mooring ball with my bare hands.
“Bring me a docking line!” I ordered. A docking line was fire-brigaded to me. “And another one!” I demanded. Another one appeared in my hand. I did a Herculean move, pulling the lines together and tying them to the stern. I didn’t even deign to shoot my kids a nasty look. We were now “anchored”—backward. Boats at anchor are supposed to point forward into the wind, not backward.
We spent the next thirty minutes putting on a circus for the boaters moored near us. I imagined the other boaters’ mocking thoughts as they sat quietly poised in their cockpits, their bows bobbing up and down, annoyingly pointed into the wind. Meanwhile I was running around untying lines, retying lines, trying to give Emily and the kids the silent treatment but also needing their help, as we painstakingly pivoted our boat to point into the wind. The correct direction. The direction we would have been if they had gotten the line the first time. If both engines had worked. If we all hadn’t felt nauseous. If, if, if.
The sun went down but the wind picked up. It was going to be a long, rolly night. The nausea was not going away. Everyone lay still, looking pale and trying not to puke. Despite her own nausea, Emily rallied to heat broth for dinner. We all took a few sips.
I looked around the ten-by-sixteen-foot cabin at Emily and our five kids, ages six to sixteen. Eli and Lily lay splayed on the floor in a pile. The older girls flopped face-first on the table. Not one of them was happy.
“Whose dumb idea was this?” I asked. Their heads lifted and looked at me. I wasn’t asking about this anchorage or this little overnight stay. I was talking about the whole trip: quitting my job, packing up our stuff, leaving our apartment and friends in New York City, flying to the Caribbean, moving aboard a fixer-upper boat we’d never seen before, and imagining we could sail all over the planet for the next year.
All their fingers pointed at me. “It was your idea, Dad!” They burst out laughing. I couldn’t help but crack a smile too.
Emily clarified. “Hey, that’s not entirely true.”
Chapter 1
Better Done Than Perfect
Upper Manhattan, New York
6 Years before Fezywig
EMILY
I’m not sure why Erik first fell in love with sailing. His first sail wasn’t pleasant. He and two buddies sweltered on a blazing, windless day up the Hudson River. Erik threw up five times between his friend’s boat, his friend’s car, and our apartment. Still, he loved the water, being on the water, and traveling by water rather than being hemmed in by it. He figured he could work around the seasickness.
Twenty miles down the Hudson, Erik worked a graveyard shift managing desktop publishing jobs for investment bankers in a skyscraper in Manhattan’s financial district. But we hadn’t come to New York City so Erik could sit in a windowless office from four to midnight five nights a week. We came for Broadway. Erik writes musicals, plays, novels, and songs. He has a degree in music. He’s also analytical—creating budgets, timelines, and contracts. He’s one of those right-brained and left-brained people.
We moved to New York City, straight out of college, with our toddler, Karina, and our newborn, Alison. We rented a two-bedroom, one-bathroom apartment in northern Manhattan. Erik had his first Broadway management job. In theatre, each show is a business. Over the years he worked on several different shows, progressing from payroll to producer. My responsibilities expanded as well. Every time we had a baby, Erik called it a promotion. Our daughter Sarah Jane was born shortly after the 9/11 terrorist attack.
Erik quit his job managing national tours for Wicked, one of the most stable and prestigious shows in the theatre industry, to produce a new off-Broadway musical. He picked the project, raised the money, hired all the actors, directors, and designers. The show closed after five weeks and was a complete financial loss. Erik was featured on the cover of Crain’s New York Business magazine; his cleft chin facing forward, his unruly blond hair defying the gel he used to slick it back—literally the poster boy for failure. People who think all producers are rich have probably never produced anything. When we took the risk, our chins were barely above water financially. We were unemployed when we welcomed our fourth child, our only boy, Eli. Simultaneously in love with our son and heartbroken over the show closing, Erik got a nighttime office temp job.
During the day, he obtained the rights to produce a musical on Broadway and started fundraising. He produced workshop readings of two of his plays. I called his creative efforts his day job. “Don’t quit your day job,” I’d say. Usually, that means, “You’ll never earn a living in the arts.” I meant, I believe in you. No matter how often we called his cubicle work a disposable job, it morphed into a permanent position. Two years later, our last child, Lily, was born.
Erik was never excited to go to his job in the glass tower, but he liked paying the rent and filling the cupboards. He made friends and studied investing, despite his supervisor’s advice not to bother understanding the bankers’ deals. He was happy to have his days free to write and explore creative opportunities. At the end of the shift, he was always happy to come home. But that first blazing sail opened his eyes to the water. He’d seen the marina adjacent to his office building on hundreds of dinner breaks. He’d seen the sailing school. The first warm season after he’d actually been sailing, he decided to cross the invisible barrier—the paradigm that sailing is for rich people—and ask about classes.
Every night, around eight o’clock, he took a dinner break and called me.
“They’re scanning our thumbs now when we clock in,” Erik said.
“Sounds like a spy movie. Next they’ll be scanning your eyeballs,” I said.
“Pretty soon they’re gonna start paying us by the minute.”
“The fact you don’t want promotions tells me you don’t want to grow there. You’re not in the right place,” I said. We’d had this conversation before.
“Speaking of going places,” Erik changed the subject. “I talked to a guy at the sailing school today. He said they will form a daytime class if I get three other students to join me.”
“You’ll love that!” I said. “Do you know anyone who wants to learn to sail?”
Erik couldn’t find any friends or coworkers to take the class. A couple of weeks later he hopped out of the shower, a towel around his waist.
“I’ve got a brilliant idea. You, Karina, and Alison can fill the other three slots. Then we’ll all know how to sail.”
“I’m scared of deep water,” I said. “Six feet deep in a swimming pool and I get irrational.”
“That’s why you need to learn to sail. You can stay in the boat.”
I knew he couldn’t do it without us. “What about Sarah Jane, Eli, and Lily?”
“We’ll hire a babysitter. It’s one afternoon a week for five weeks.”
“Five hundred dollars each for the class, plus childcare . . . that’ll be like twenty-five hundred dollars. How are we going to pay for that?” I asked. Erik countered my money concern by taking on a short-term second job reviewing theatrical contracts for a previous employer. He was embarrassed to go back for this temporary demotion but grateful to be able to learn to sail.
Eleven-year-old Karina and nine-year-old Alison counted down the days until class started. The course was the American Sailing Association 101, Bas
ic Keelboat Sailing Certification. The first week, we mastered basic vocabulary. The second week, our instructor motored us into New York Harbor, raised the sails, and cut the engine. We were sailing.
I stood at the bow smiling into the wind. Under a bright blue sky, the Statue of Liberty presided over a busy harbor filled with water taxis, tankers, and us. I turned to smile at my family and saw Erik upright at the tiller, grimly concentrating on not vomiting. Karina was unusually quiet. Her blonde head rested on the starboard deck, and Alison’s red head rested on the portside deck.
“How much longer until class is over?” Karina asked. Alison moved only her eyeballs to look at me. I wasn’t seasick at all. I wondered if I had a knack for sailing.
The third week we arrived with generic motion sickness pills, ginger gum, and wristbands that tell your brain you’re not queasy.
Things evened out. I got seasick, too. We learned to manage our seasickness when it came. I kept my eyes on the horizon and kept the conversations light. We pulled ropes tight, cleated them off, winched them, released them, raised and lowered sails, and best of all, turned into the wind. Our instructor ensured we didn’t catch our thumbs in the winch or cut in front of a water taxi.
Erik was the best sailor. Alison had a knack for wind direction and what to do with it. Karina was mildly surprised to be bested by her younger sister. I aced my written test, but I was the worst sailor in our family. That was no surprise. Erik seems to have been born with an internal compass. I usually don’t know what direction I’m facing. When we first moved to New York City it once took me so long to parallel park that a stranger got off his front stoop, asked for the keys, and parked for me. For me, sailing was an exciting exercise, a cool learning experience, a one-off.
Erik, however, wasn’t done sailing. After all that effort, he wanted to see if we could sail a boat without an instructor. Being in a boat wasn’t as bad as being in the water, but it certainly wasn’t my idea of a comfort zone. I talked myself into one more outing to support him and to extend the experience to Sarah Jane, Eli, and Lily. They’d never set foot on a boat. Like any mom who wants her child to taste a new food, I wanted them to try it. Erik shopped the tristate area for a budget-friendly rental. His persistence paid off.
