Husband and wife, Mark and Catherine Jackson, together with their two young children, Mia and Lochy, set sail from Greece exactly a year ago. So, after twelve months at sea, twelve thousand miles and twenty countries we caught up with Catherine to find out how it really feels to be a mum at sea.

“Personally I feel a huge sense of achievement, realising a goal that I had set in my 20s and hadn’t quite achieved. Dealing with my kids (no, son) resisting home schooling for most of the trip (on the Atlantic side) and then blossoming into children for whom it was a joy to teach (well, nearly!) and who have developed a passion for animals.

We’ve done things we could never have imagined – snorkeled near humpback whales, with sharks and sting rays, seen things we feel truly blessed to have seen – we just left the Minerva reef – quite literally in the middle of the ocean, a reef appears, with a turquoise lagoon and phenomenal coral and wildlife. There are some things we didn’t expect or predict like Mark’s strong dislike of the heat. Not so good in the tropics! Or, having one of our worst arguments ever about how to hoist a sail. Try having a minor disagreement in a boat when you’ve been cooped up with your family for a week without seeing anyone else!

We have had crew on various parts of the trip and loved it. Every time we had someone new on board, we were all much more polite to each other! Getting four hours more sleep a day helped plus it’s nice to meet new people and help them realise their dreams as well as them helping us to realise ours. However, we haven’t had crew since the Marquesas and we’ve have got much better at sailing just the two of us.

Material things haven’t mattered this year – the kids have lived in their swimwear most of the way, they don’t have iPods or Nintendo’s. They do watch movies and listen to audio stories, but they’ve given up asking if they can go on the internet, because half the time it’s been too slow for us to use, let alone to play a game on it. So, they have both developed a real love of reading. And they know more about fish and animals than I do, especially if they are toxic or venomous, which can be handy!”