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Speaker 1: New Jersey and Amanda jam Nationagine being raised on a boat,

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Speaker 1: growing up surrounded by the ocean, away from the normality

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Speaker 1: of school and the usual childhood routines.

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Speaker 2: Sounds like a dream. Well this is what UK native

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Speaker 2: Suzanne Haywood did. This was her childhood and it wasn't

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Speaker 2: always a dream. She shares this unusual upbringing in the

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Speaker 2: story in her new book called wave Walker, and she

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Speaker 2: joins us now, Suzanne high, Hi, great to join you.

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Speaker 3: Well, I guess it's a lot of people say, what's

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Speaker 3: the matter with you, your big wingy, You get to

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Speaker 3: go with a boat when you're seven, get out of

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Speaker 3: school and everything. But having been on a few boats

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Speaker 3: with cranky sailors, I know that it's not ideal.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, well, I think being on a boat is great.

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Speaker 4: The problem with my journey is that I was on

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Speaker 4: that boat for ten years and we got shipwrecked along

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Speaker 4: the way. We almost died. There was very limited schooling,

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Speaker 4: and imagine being trapped on a boat for ten years

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Speaker 4: when you can't have friends because she.

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Speaker 2: Wasn't expected to be years or you didn't think it

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Speaker 2: was going to be ten years, did you no?

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Speaker 4: When we set out, my dad said the voyage was

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Speaker 4: going to be three years long, and then we had

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Speaker 4: a terrible shipwreck crossing from South Africa to Australia. We

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Speaker 4: ended up in Fremantle, spent a year repairing the boat,

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Speaker 4: so it was four years to get to the end

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Speaker 4: of the voyage. And then my father just decided to

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Speaker 4: keep sailing, and he just didn't seem interested in the

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Speaker 4: fact that my brother and me needed to go to school,

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Speaker 4: we wanted friends. We just kept on sailing and it

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Speaker 4: went on and on and on for year after year

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Speaker 4: after year.

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Speaker 5: And your mom was in on this, wasn't she.

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Speaker 4: Well, my mum hated sailing and she got terribly badly seasick,

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Speaker 4: so I think that's one of the reasons why she

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Speaker 4: was quite grumpy on the boat. But unfortunately, her view

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Speaker 4: was that if my father was going to go sailing,

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Speaker 4: she was going to go with him. So my mother

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Speaker 4: was going to go, and therefore us kids had to

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Speaker 4: go with them.

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Speaker 2: So what was day to day life like? And even

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Speaker 2: though the ocean would be constantly changing, there would be

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Speaker 2: a sameliness to being on a boat just with you,

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Speaker 2: your brother and your parents for all that time.

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Speaker 4: Yes, So for the first few years we were crossing

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Speaker 4: Big Ocean, so we crossed the North Atlantic and then

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Speaker 4: the South Atlantic Ocean, and then we crossed the Indian Ocean.

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Speaker 4: So we were at sea for six, seven eight weeks

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Speaker 4: at a time. And when you were a little kid

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Speaker 4: on a boat for that long, what you're doing is

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Speaker 4: you're spending most of your time below deck, which is

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Speaker 4: a pretty small space to be in, so you can't

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Speaker 4: go and run around, you know, you can't see friends,

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Speaker 4: you can't really do very much because you're trapped down below.

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Speaker 4: So my brother and I would make up games to

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Speaker 4: try and make the time go by. Later on when

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Speaker 4: we got to Australia and then onwards, we were stopping

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Speaker 4: from time to time, but we never stopped for that

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Speaker 4: long apart from when we were repairing the boat in Fremantle.

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Speaker 4: So most of the time we're just going from one

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Speaker 4: place to another. What was the.

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Speaker 2: Strangest thing you saw while you were sailing in terms

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Speaker 2: of flotsam, jets and animals. What some of the weird

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Speaker 2: stuff you saw.

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Speaker 4: We saw some amazing stuff. So obviously whales and dolphins

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Speaker 4: and whales are quite scary if you're a sailor, because

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Speaker 4: there are many stories of boats that get damaged by whales.

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Speaker 4: We also once sail past in an exploding volcano that

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Speaker 4: was in the South Pacific. We went to some very

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Speaker 4: remote islands in Fiji where it was said that they

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Speaker 4: used to have cannibals, but I don't know if that's true.

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Speaker 4: I certainly never saw that myself, but we did see

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Speaker 4: some incredible things.

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Speaker 5: And how do you go with your Are your parents

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Speaker 5: still with us?

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Speaker 4: So sadly no, my mom died in twenty sixteen. My

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Speaker 4: parents were very very much against me ever writing my story,

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Speaker 4: and that's one of the reasons why it's taken me

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Speaker 4: so long to write it, because I knew that if

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Speaker 4: I told the story honestly as it was how I

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Speaker 4: experienced it, they would get very angry. And my father

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Speaker 4: is a naturally quite angry person, particularly if he's kind

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Speaker 4: of drinking. So it took me a long time to

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Speaker 4: get brave enough to tell it. But I eventually got

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Speaker 4: to the point where I had children who were the

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Speaker 4: same sort of ages when I'd really struggled on Wavewalker,

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Speaker 4: and then I looked at them as a parent and thought,

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Speaker 4: I just can't understand the decisions that my parents made

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Speaker 4: at the same age. And I really want to tell

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Speaker 4: my story.

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Speaker 5: Do you have resentment towards your parents now?

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Speaker 4: Not now, because the past is the past. I mean

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Speaker 4: people do say kind of do you forgive them? And

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Speaker 4: I don't really forgive them, but it doesn't bother me.

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Speaker 4: I mean, I don't wake up in the morning feeling

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Speaker 4: angry about it. It is what it is. They made

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Speaker 4: some crazy decisions that were, you know, all based around

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Speaker 4: my father's dream of sailing this boat and didn't really

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Speaker 4: take any great account of what his children needed, any

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Speaker 4: sort of stability. But I don't really feel angry about that.

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Speaker 4: I'm now a mum myself. I've got my own three kids,

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Speaker 4: I've got my own career. I've written kind of several books,

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Speaker 4: wave Walker be in the kind of last one, so

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Speaker 4: I you know, I don't want to spend my life

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Speaker 4: doing that. So no, I don't kind of feel bitter

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Speaker 4: about it. But I'm very happy I've been able to

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Speaker 4: tell my story and that it's touched so many people

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Speaker 4: who actually often not at sea, but they've often had

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Speaker 4: similar sorts of experiences in their own family.

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Speaker 5: And do you go for sale these days?

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Speaker 4: Not very much, although I did go back and get

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Speaker 4: my yacht Master qualification before I wrote the book. A

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Speaker 4: little bit of imposter syndrome going on there. I think

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Speaker 4: I felt the need, the need to go back and

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Speaker 4: prove myself. But no, I'm afraid my three kids know

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Speaker 4: enough of my childhood to have refused any sailing adventures.

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Speaker 5: That they wouldn't get on the boat.

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Speaker 3: I can imagine if you said, come on, kids, we're

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Speaker 3: going for sale, three years, a three.

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Speaker 4: Hours, worry, don't worry, We'll we're back soft.

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Speaker 5: Yeah, sure you say that, Susan Hayward. The book is great.

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Speaker 5: It's called wave Walker. Thank you for joining us.

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Speaker 4: You're very welcome. Thank you,