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[Times photos: Chris Zuppa]
Brad Meilink, foreground, checks his e-mail while Christin and Kurtis play the game “Sequence” on a Saturday morning aboard Milady. Their mom, Sandy, watches. The family moved onto the boat in July 2000.
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At home on the water
These kids' rooms aren't just neat. They're shipshape.
By JACOB LUDIN
© St. Petersburg Times
published January 13, 2003
ST. PETERSBURG -- Kurtis Meilink has a pretty unusual home.
Kurtis, his sister and their parents live aboard a 43-foot sailboat. The kids' rooms are the size of walk-in closets, and netting has to be strung everywhere to keep things from tumbling about the boat, which is docked at the Harborage in St. Petersburg.
Kurtis Meilink, 12, walks the new family dog, Brownie, outside his family’s sailboat home at the Harborage Marina in St. Petersburg.
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The small space means that everyone must contribute to the boat's upkeep. "Because it is a tighter space, the boat must be kept cleaner than a house," said Kurtis, 12, a seventh-grader at Bay Point Middle School. "I have to do dishes and keep my room clean."
The family's sailing adventure began two years ago when Brad and Sandy Meilink, both 42, decided to sell their Virginia home and nearly everything in it to cruise their boat, the Milady, to the Caribbean. They moved the family aboard the boat in July 2000 and sailed to the islands in October of that year.
Although everyone in the family knew how to sail, they had never gone on a journey like this. Also, life aboard Milady was much different from that on land.
The Meilinks had to get used to living in a very small area. The parents sleep in the rear cabin, or stern of the boat. Kurtis sleeps in the forward cabin near the bow. His sister, Christin, 11, has a small room near the eating area in the center of the boat.
The netting behind Kurtis, right, holds the kids’ toys and games in place aboard their floating home. Christin is reflected in the mirror.
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The children store their games and toys on an extra bunk bed in Kurtis' room. The boat is rarely level at sea, and netting is strung across the bed to keep the games from falling onto the floor when the boat heels or bounces around.
While the Meilinks were traveling, it was too difficult to have pets on the boat. Now that they are living in a marina, they can. This year as a Christmas gift, Kurtis and Christin got a dog. The chocolate-colored Labrador retriever is named Brownie. The children can now easily walk the dog off the boat when she needs exercise.
During their trip to the Caribbean, the Meilinks visited many islands as far south and east as Tobago in Trinidad and Tobago, just off the coast of Venezuela.
Christin's favorite place was the Tobago Keys, quiet islands with sandy beaches and reefs for snorkeling. "It was deserted and a very nice place," Christin said. Kurtis said his favorite place was Exuma in the Bahamas; he said the snorkeling was great.
Sandy Meilink, right, and her husband Brad make breakfast for the family on a recent Saturday morning in the kitchen of Milady. Mrs. Meilink says it was a dream to make the journey that they did and she was glad the kids were with them. “When you have a dream, why not include your kids?” she said.
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Even though they were living on a boat, Christin and Kurtis still had to go to school. They were home schooled, mostly by their mom, but their dad pitched in, too. Many mornings they could go snorkeling before school.
"Occasionally we would get a day off from school but not often," Christin said.
Although the family lives on a boat, it has a computer with Internet access. But the Meilinks can use the Internet only when they are at the dock. When they are near land, they can use their cell phone to call friends and family.
The Meilinks have a television aboard Milady. But they cannot pick up stations when they are away from land. Instead, they watch videotapes.
Unlike many kids, Christin and Kurtis can go to bed whenever they want and wake up when they want. Sometimes when Kurtis helped with the night watch on trips, he did not sleep at all.
When the Meilinks sailed through the night, someone in the family had to do a night watch. At night, the boat sailed itself with an autopilot, but someone had to be awake to watch the sails and for other boats.
Usually one of Kurtis' parents stayed up with him. But occasionally he was on night watch alone and had full responsibility for the safety of the boat and his family. "If I saw any lights (from other boats) I would wake my dad," Kurtis said.
In May 2002, the Meilinks ended their journey in St. Petersburg at the Harborage Marina near the Dali Museum. The Meilinks decided to move to St. Petersburg because they wanted to live somewhere warmer than Virginia. And Kurtis and Christin's grandparents like to visit here.
Christin is in sixth grade and attends Bay Point Middle School with Kurtis. Their parents are looking for jobs in manufacturing management and engineering, and are trying to sell Milady. For now, Brad Meilink is a marine tech at a boatyard while Sandy Meilink is a project manager at a manufacturing company. They are ready to move onto land again.
The kids are not happy about leaving Milady. "We got lots of days off and got to see things that most people wouldn't see," Christin said.
Even though they lived in a small space, Kurtis said they got used to it and he enjoyed being close to his family.
-- Jacob Ludin, 11, is in fifth grade at the Pinellas County Jewish Day School in Clearwater.
Here's the rest of today's Xpress
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