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?

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.

Volcano v planes

Iceland has become the most over-heated topic of conversation at Baird-May Towers. First it was aboutWest Ham (icelanders bought the club); then we focused on the banking crisis (which led to West Ham changing hands) and now it's that pesky volcano. This post is by Nicola.

No planes over London is spookily pleasurable. Without the planes it's been possible to sleep (ALL night), and leave the windows open. To hear bird song and see such blue skies you'd think it was a Photoshop trick. London is still noisy, but not half as bad as it usually is. And with all those busy Brits stuck somewhere else the city's tubes, trains and roads are far less crowded making cycling easier, taking buses more effective and walking more enjoyable.

It seems this is the world's first carbon neutral volcano. The figures go like this - the European aviation industry is emitting 344,109 tons a day and volcano Eyjafjallajoekoll 150,000 tons - so while the planes are forced to rest our volcano has cut Europe's carbon footprint by nearly 200,000 tons a day. See here for more info from the number crunchers.

Ironically the best view I've ever had of a volcano was when I was in a light aircraft island hopping in the South Pacific and the pilot flew close to the snout of a newly emerged volcano so we could have a better look. If I'd known then what I know now about dust particles I'd have been terrified.

Instead I was smitten looking down from the tiny plane into the smouldering red heart of a new volcano spitting out boulders with gusto as it emerged from the Pacific Ocean floor. Two years later I was in Rabaul, the Papua New Guinean town destroyed by it's neighbouring volcano looking for a friend who'd lost their home to hot grey laval ash forcing his family to move into a shipping container.

I know volcanos are an expensive pain, but for us stay-at-homes the no fly zone has been an unexpected treat. And an early lesson in what happens when your sky supplies get shut down...