Mum of four and yacht owner, Tatiana Kulikovsky, tells Grace Trofa about showing her children the world aboard 27.4 metre Orion...
As soon as he had his first money, my husband, Sérgio, bought a seven metre monohull. We went on weekend adventures in Brazil as we grew up together. After we married, he wanted a boat big enough to accommodate a family so he built a 18.2 metre catamaran.
We then decided to sail to Israel with our three children. We had a lot of fun in the Med – stopping in Portugal, Spain, Italy, Greece, Turkey, Crete – and it took us eight months to get to Herzliya. We liked it so much we enrolled the kids in school and stayed for six months.
When it came time to sail back to Brazil, we stretched the trip over two years. We would sail the boat to a destination, fly home to Brazil and rejoin the boat on holidays to sail to the next destination. We went back to our regular lives of work and school, but my husband always wanted to take another big trip. When we mentioned it to the children, my son Nathan said: “Why don’t we go by boat?”
We bought Orion five years ago. We love the interior space and wanted to experience living on her. We decided to take this trip now while we can still make decisions for our children, who are 14, 12, 10 and 4. The memories from our first trip in 2010 were fading and they only remembered our stories. Now they have many different stories of their own. Every week they get school assignments and when we have internet connection we send back their homework. Last March we flew to the Caribbean and sailed to New Zealand where we arrived in November.
We are still here in this beautiful country. I enjoy very much being with my family. The children are very confident; they help with chores and participate in every decision.
I like having the boat as a house but having the ability to go anyplace we want. My husband loves not only the wind on his face but also the machinery and how it works. He entertains himself by reading the manuals.
My favourite memory used to be arriving in port in Israel. I dreamed about how it would be and when we got close, we were all very happy and listening to Jewish songs. But now I think that all arrivals are special.
Our favourite discovery on our way to New Zealand was the volcanic island of Niue and diving among the corals in crystal-clear water. I don’t know when we will go back to Brazil – not now. We have enrolled the kids in school in Australia for a year.
It will be a new opportunity for them to enjoy life. We don’t like to make long range plans and usually do things on short notice. We always look forward to discovering the next place and just being together on this adventure.