What four years at sea taught me about our relationship to the ocean

Oceans are central to the story of civilisation - so why do so many of us feel disconnected from them?It was on day 11, I think, that I stopped getting out of bed at all. I had already let my hygiene standards slip to the point that a large knot was starting to form in my hair. Later my mother would have to cut it out with scissors. She didn't mind. We were all in the same boat.I was nine years old, and nearly two weeks into sailing across the Atlantic with my family. My father had sailed all his life, and introduced my mother to it; and they spent years preparing to sail around the world. Including my little sister, that made four of us aboard a 52ft yacht - our home for four years from 2000, in which time we got from Dorset to New Zealand. Continue reading...