Is it ok to be nervous in boats?

This blog is about family travel around the world without leaving the UK. Impossible? No. This time a quick look at reasons to be seasick This post is by Nicola Baird (see www.nicolabaird.com for more info about books and blogs)   

As a child I would scream if you put me into a boat. Obviously I blame my parents for this - they'd taken me to Strangford Loch, in Northern Ireland and wanted me to play by the shore. In a bid to stop me wading into the water they put the fear of God (and a lifelong terror of water) into me by talking about the whirlpool that killed. You see,

Boats gets swallowed by whirlpools...

Even though I'm grown up and know all about life drills and the Plimsoll Line, I'm still a bit nervous of water. That's why I've made sure my daughters can swim, kayak and row. I know the difference between a life jacket and a life protector - and use them.

But the terrible stories of shipwrecks over the past few months - an oil tanker off New Zealand, the cruiser off Italy and now a ferry in Papua New Guinea (see story here) - freak me out.

Titanic fears
Last summer,on the way back to the UK after a three-month break in the Solomons and Australia, we saw a vast cruise liner squeezing under the huge Sydney Harbour Bridge. It must have been one of the ships that take 4,000 passengers. I probably never would consider going on a ship that big, but once you've seen a tower block floating past (see pic above & below) it is hard to imagine how you would cope in a crisis situation. Or indeed what it would be like with lights out in an overturned boat, a rough sea and all staircases turned into cliffs.

Boats seem to attract accidents, bad weather and poor seamanship. They also dump crap in the sea, not just sewage, but waste oil and loose cargo.

Consider this post a thumbs down to motor boats, however big.

Over to you?
Is boat travel still the way to go in the 21st century? What would you do to improve ship safety and sustainability?

Sport binds us?

This blog is about family travel around the world without leaving the UK.

In a series of lighthearted emails back in January 2010 the excellent head at Woodford International School in Honiara, Solomon Islands said my little Brit daughters could only attend his school (for a week) if our whole family promised not to support New Zealand's 2011 Rugby World Cup bid.

Well, that seemed like a nobrainer.

I've never enjoyed rugby (or to be honest understood the scoring). If he wanted me to cheer for Oz's side (the one that hasn't won the rugby world cup for years...) then I was happy to do so.

But it's 9 September 2011 today and the Rugby World Cup has started - with New Zealand the hosts until 23 October. The host nation are apparently favourites, and haven't won top honours) (the Webb Ellis trophy since the inaugural game in 1987. This seems to be an advantage, they've certainly played the first half of their first game rather finely. But don't worry Greg, I was just looking at the Tonga team's red strip, and then couldn't resist watching both teams doing their fierce Polynesian war dances before the game kicked off.

And thanks to Greg I've realised that there are seven weeks of sport to enjoy and lots of the teams are from a long, long way away. I'm especially looking forward to the Fiji v Namibia game on Saturday (watch it on ITV 1, 4.30pm).

The picture above is more relevant than it might seem, it's a Pijin-language slogan Tshirt meaning we can do it together (tugetha iumi save duim) - which I took at Honiara's Lime Lounge during an annual award ceremony for Courageous Women. The Solomon Islands award was won by a woman who'd done a huge amount of surveying to discover that more than 60 per cent of women aged 15-49 had experienced domestic violence. This is a very high rate, and besides Papua New Guinea, one of the highest in the Pacific region. It's also shocking - it's dads, uncles, step fathers, grandparents, brothers and cousins who are hurting their wantoks (relations).

Scary jobs
I've been sniffing around the internet finding out more about this and discovered a just published Amnesty International report that surveyed Solomon Islands women collecting water in an area of Honiara that is off-grid (actually it's off-grid for about 90 per cent of houses). During the day only two men went to the water pipe, everyone else was female. When the women were asked why the men weren't helping the answer was "They are playing sport or drinking kwaso (a potent homebrew)." Here is the Solomon Star link.

I guess seven weeks of sport is good for nation building and bad for a lot of non-sport mad partners. Especially the ones collecting water (and in my London home that probably includes washing up duty).

Anyway, enjoy the games. And if you have to collect water, do so safely...

Mr Pip's rebellion

Nicola, Pete, Lola and Nell love to travel - sometimes this can be done by staying put and just reading... This post takes you to the South Pacific with the help of two writers - Charles Dickens and Lloyd Jones. It is by Nicola Baird (although the video isn't)

What a classic choice. Hugh Lawrie looks set to be Mr Pip in the film version of Lloyd Jones' amazing book of the same name - a modern retelling of Dickens' Great Expectations set in Bougainville, Papua New Guinea with a couple of moments in the Solomons and New Zealand. Filming is near Arawa (in Kieta village) from May - July.

I loved the book - in fact have just re-read it - and tried to tell the author this at a meet and greet author session organised by Borders before it closed down. But poor Lloyd Jones was unwell from the long New Zealand flight and failed to show. But here's a warning: it's not for sensitive souls - the Bougainville blockade of the 1990s and the cruelty meted out be the government's forces (redskins in the book) and the rebels was appalling. At least a generation of children lost their chance of education, many people died unnecessarily, not just from conflict but malaria.

Here's a short video of a young girl canoeing in a lookalike PNG village to the one Lloyd Jones imagined. I borrowed this from a blog called My Amazing Paradise.  Here's the video.

Pacific pleasures

Pete, Nicola, Lola, 9, and Nell, 6, spent three happy months during summer 2007 traveling around Britain. Now we’re home but the travel bug is still there. Join us for the occasional sightseeing plus tips on how to shrink your carbon footprint. This post is from Nicola (with pic of Lola and Nell strictly come dancing the Pacific way)

Aloha! It’s not all dancing in the Pacific, but at this year’s Pacific Island Society we were treated to a taste of Oceania with dancing from Tuvalu, Kiribati and the Cook Islands. There was a particularly energetic and expert show from Kiribati which has set up the Beats of the Pacific group to delight the UK. It’s a big group which has drummers, MC, mothers, single women and children as young as three swirling their grass skirts and lavalavas (hips left to right and round and round) in the most astonishing displays of dexterity. There were three blokes dancing who stole the show with their warrior poses, paddle action and proud Polynesian energy. They tried to get some of the crowd to join in, but with the average age of the audience at over 60 I think some people’s hips may need replacing sooner than anticipated. Not mine though as I was too chicken (and coldy) to go for it. In contrast Lola and Nell took to the dance floor happily.

Despite such a happy event it is not easy to forget that the people of Tuvalu – 11,000 of them – are facing enormous change in the next few years thanks to climate change which is causing sea levels to rise. Because their homeland islands just don’t have hills the Tuvaluans are likely to be the first climate change environmental refugees of an anticipated 1-3 million. New Zealand has agreed to take 75 per cent of all Tuvaluan migrants each year, which may be generous but switching from island life to Kiwi consumerism is hardly to be looked forward to – unless there’s no other alternative.