Danielle Vandehei is a world-schooling sailor mum who, with her husband and son, spent the last four years building a life around sailing, exploration and learning through experience.
Danielle shares how a breaking point on land — a demanding job, a young child, and a longing for more intentional time together — pushed the family to sell their home, their farm animals, and nearly everything they owned to learn to sail from scratch. She's honest about the messy, non-linear reality behind that decision: budget overruns, a house that took a year to sell, a stint in a minivan through Mexico, and plenty of "we're not in alignment yet, that's okay" moments along the way.
How does education actually works aboard their boat — starting not with a curriculum, but with deschooling themselves as parents first. Danielle explains how her son learns numbers through fishing, reading through his fish identification book, and social confidence through navigating world-school hubs full of kids of every age and language.
Danielle has created Water World Micro Expeditions, the family's new venture inviting other families aboard to experience sailing, marine life, and reconnection with nature in San Blas, Panama — plus where their vision is headed next.
Key Takeaways
Deschool the parent first. Before a child can learn differently, the adult often has to unlearn their own assumptions about what "proper" education looks like.
Follow the interest, not the age bracket. Danielle's son learns to read through a fish identification book and does mental math through abacus — because those are his interests, not a set curriculum.
Learning is 0 to 99, not 5 to 18. There's no finish line — removing the pressure of a deadline changes how both kids and adults relate to learning.
Nothing about this life was linear. Selling a 40-acre property took eight months; the house took a year to sell; they went from camper to minivan to boat and back again. Alignment came in its own time.
Resilience is the standout FIRE value here — the willingness to stay in motion through setbacks (a blown transmission, a slow house sale) rather than let fear shut the plan down.
Social confidence grows through real exposure, not curriculum: Danielle's son now approaches kids and adults of any age or language unprompted, something she attributes directly to years of varied, real-world interaction.
Community over content. Water World Micro Expeditions isn't about replicating school on a boat — it's about giving families a lived experience of sailing, marine life, and reconnecting with themselves and each other.
Chapters:
00:02 - Introduction to World Schooling
04:15 - Transition to a New Way of Living
09:51 - Transitioning to a New Lifestyle
16:38 - Deschooling and Adapting to New Learning Environments
27:47 - Nurturing Well-Being in Education
34:22 - Connecting with Nature and Learning through Experience
37:50 - Building a Vision for Water World
https://waterworldmicroexpeditions.com/
Facebook Danielle Marie Vandehei
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Hello. Welcome back to Education on Fire. Today I'm delighted to be chatting to Danielle Vanderheim.
She's a world schooling sailor mum who is out to share learning with the world while regulating the nervous system and finding alignment with kids.
Now with her husband and son, they are a full time live aboard world schooling family who has spent the last four years building a life around sailing, exploration and learning through experiences. Now before this chapter, they lived a very different kind of life on land and felt the constant pace and chaos that so many families know well.
But craving something new, they decided to learn to sail and along the way fell in love with the ocean. Fishing, exploring and discovering new places by boat.
Now as their journey unfolded, they felt called to create something more meaningful that they could share with others.
Now that vision became Water World Micro Expeditions where they now invite other families and adventurers to experience a different way of living, learning and connecting with the water. Now today we discuss how learning and education works for their son on board a boat and how the starting point was unschooling themselves.
Hello, my name is Mark Taylor and welcome to the Education on Far podcast. The place for creative and inspiring learning from around the world.
Listen to teachers, parents and mentors show how they are supporting children to live their best authentic life and are proving to be a guiding light to us all. Hi Danielle, thank you so much for joining us here on the Education on Far podcast. Welcome.
We talk so much about the environment that our children grow up in, the environment that they learn in. And I think many people when they hear this story will think that sounds like such a great way to live.
I'd love to do it, but there's no way I can or if I could. Those steps seem to be so far removed from my experience.
I think our, our journey today will sort of, hopefully sort of dispel some of those myths and also give people a bit of inspiration as to how they can fit it into their life now or in terms of like say making the drastic decisions and changes that you all said as well. So yeah, really looking forward to where this takes us.
Danielle Vandehei:
Yes, as well.
Like I said, I'm really excited about really just helping inspire more people and show them that there is ways to do it and you have to just get out of the box for it.
Mark Taylor:
So why don't we start kind of at that point so where that kind of life decision came from that you knew that you wanted to make a change, how that kind of came about and, and how easy was that to kind of go from the theory to the kind of, no, this is going to be our life. And, and how we can make that work both as a family in. And. And sort of for everyone involved.
Danielle Vandehei:
Yeah. So we actually never wanted to do any type of public school. From the moment I kind of got. I was pregnant, I was having new.
Knowing I was going to be raising this kid. I did not want to do that. And so we were kind of already in that mindset. But then things have obviously kind of had their ups and downs and shifts.
We. I started working on building a remote job and as. As I was pregnant. So I started building this and it started to work and.
And it started to build and grow. But then after Covid happened, my business crashed and burned and I had a little bit of a struggle. Of course, we all have bumps.
And I started working as a cooking coach. One of my clients gave me a job and so I started working for them. And I was doing it so much.
My kid was just around one o' clock, one years old that point, and he. I was gone so much that it just drove me nuts. Like, I was not into it. And so I just.
There was one night where I came home, it was 10 o', clock, and he was crying for mom. And I had just had a really long day and I was just like, I'm done. I need to figure something else out.
And mind you, I had literally just finished building my home for three years and just moved into it for like almost two. And at this point, I was like, came to my husband and I'm like, I don't like my job. I don't like what's going on. I want to change. I just.
Honestly, we. We actually traveled beforehand. So that was kind of where I'm like, I already wanted to travel. I wanted to go down that path.
And we actually bought a small little camper and kind of started traveling that way. But I wanted to go international. And we sat back and we're like, well, what can we do that's different?
Because I really had no intention at that time because Covid had happened. And I'm like, I don't want to jump on a plane. So what are we going to do next?
Well, we started thinking creatively and we decided, let's go learn to sail. And that was like the easy, okay, well, I can go learn to sail. Never sailed in my life, by the way. Okay. Not. Not even that kind of an ocean person.
I was like, I had a pontoon boat and did lake boats, but that was about it. But I kind of. We had decided that we were going to do it. And so, okay, we start going down the path, like, what's next? What does this look like?
I obviously had to go back to the idea of I have to figure out remote work. No matter what. I have to figure out some type of remote work. I'm gonna go start looking and building.
And I actually got into make money online courses for a little while and started to do that. We started making a game plan.
My husband started reading sale books throughout the whole summer while he was working the water, tending for the fires, because that was his job. And that was another reason why I also was just kind of like, I was done. He was constantly gone.
I was constantly recently, like running around and nothing about what I was living was what I wanted. And I really wanted to spend more of that intentional time with my kid.
So after we made the decision that we were like, okay, we're gonna do this, we started. He started reading books, I started selling everything off. I had. We had already.
We had a 40 acre property, a two story house, we had all kinds of farm animals, I had a garden, I had all kinds of stuff. So I had to start selling slowly selling everything off. And that took already like eight months alone just to sell everything off.
And then I started diving myself back into the remote work. Okay, let me start building a brand. Let me start getting this going and like really put my energy into that.
And so I slowly started working that end and it started to make a little bit here and there, but it wasn't like a significant amount. A lot of it was really, okay, we're going to go off on this budget right now. The house is going to go up for sale.
Like we're going to just go all in with the house on the set on for sale. And so when we took off, we got into a bigger camper. We got rid of this smaller camper that we actually had gotten to travel.
But it wasn't, you know, because we weren't going to do sailing or because we were going to do sailing and not like traveling too much in the states. We needed a bigger camper because we're like, we're not going to live in this. We went from a 23 foot to a 38 foot.
So we had enough space for us to comfortably all three live there. And so we left our home in Oregon and went all the way over to Florida. And we had no clue what we were even going to do, honestly.
We were just like, we're gonna figure out how we're gonna get into sailing and we took one sunset tour and it was pretty funny because the captain like had a conversation with us and he was like, it seems that you guys know a good amount about sailing, really. AKA my husband knew a lot about sailing because he read the books. I just told everything. It was like, come up with this crazy plan.
And he just went it. And so the guy told us, he's like, I think you guys should just go buy a cheap boat and start learning and practicing.
So that's exactly what we ended up doing. We bought this cheap boat, did not realize it was the cheap boat, was going to end up being a little bit more than we expected.
Our transmission dropped on it immediately, so we had to do a complete overhaul. We just thought we were doing a bottom job, but it was a little more than expected, which kind of messed up on the budget a bit.
And the house didn't sell quickly.
Our house actually took about a year to sell, which, you know, in my mind I'd say it was, it was difficult, but it also was, it was a lot of learning lessons and really set us into like, okay, how are we budgeting ourselves? How are we going to keep making things flow? We kept selling little things as we went, which was great.
And then I kept slowly working on my online businesses and so that's. We slowly just kept making that work. We actually, when the house sold, we were back at my parents on our second season back, I believe it was.
We went back twice because we'd stay for her for sailing season in Florida and then we'd leave for hurricane season. So the second season was when we were kind of like, okay, we're really like starting to. We, we're gonna sell this boat. This boat needs to go.
We want to go in a bigger boat. Because at that point we were in a 27 foot boat and we knew we were going to go full time.
But the house like was still going through its interesting shifts because we sold it and it was an owner carry. So we got chunk and then not all of it. So we made that chunk last.
And it was kind of funny because finally we were like, okay, well we're not in alignment yet. That's okay. We're just going to keep, keep going with, with whatever's flowing.
So we traveled a little around the states after our boat sold and then we realized, okay, we want to not go back to Florida. Because I still wanted to. Like we were saying before about it being cold. I don't like to be in the cold anymore.
So we decided to get rid of the camper and we got into a small minivan and we packed every, we went from camper size now to a minivan and we started traveling through Mexico. And basically we Airbnb around Mexico, learning different, different areas, checking them out.
And finally it was funny because right as we got tired of doing the Airbnb, we're like, this is really not for us. Like, we like a moving home kind of thing.
We like to have either the camper or the boat because I can have most of my stuff that I really need and it's comfortable. Like the house moves. You only move a couple of things around.
But when you're in a, in a minivan or people who are in a backpack, like you have to pack everything up and then you have to unload it and you have to carry it wherever, however far. And it just got exhausting.
And so it was kind of funny because right as we got to the point of being exhausted, our house finally resold all the way and it just got paid out. And we were like, here's the alignment here, here's the chance.
Like, so we went and bought a full time live aboard boat and we found it down in Rio Dulce, Guatemala. So we went from Mexico down to Rio Dulce to go buy this boat and it was just kind of like, okay, game on. Like, here we go.
We saved, we, we put ourselves on a budget. We did a budget boat still and then we kept the rest.
We did some investments and then we also took a chunk to give us ourselves a Runway of okay, this is how, you know, we got this to work with. This is going to go start investing and stuff and this is what we're going to buy for our boat so that it's paid off, the boat is fully ours.
We don't have to worry about anything. And on that note, we just kept working on, okay, what are the online businesses?
And I've slowly actually been over the last four years building and building multiple different, like online businesses. I have a funding service right now in the US I also have a water Kangen business that I share with people for health and wellness.
I also share a couple of other health supplements because health and wellness is my avenue.
And then now it's kind of interesting because we over the last four years trying to figure out, okay, where's it not just the alignment, only for myself, but for my whole family.
And that's really what's been interesting for all of us is learning one, the schooling style for my son because whatever we do has to somehow integrate with him and I, over the last year, have been taking a world school hub creator course because I thought of the idea of like, well, what if we bring more families on board? My son is. I only have one kid. So people always ask me, they're like, is it hard, you know, having just one kid when you're traveling?
I'm like, sometimes it can be.
And that was kind of where we figured this could be bring a chance to bring in more community for our, Our, our family, our kid, and also give ourselves something where we can share our experiences. Because also over the, the time now my husband is a captain, and so he, he teaches.
He's the one who's teaching all the sailing, and he's the one teaching all the sailing. And then my son is actually sharing all of his fishing. Like, he's really into the ocean life. He loves to learn about the fish. He's all into fishing.
And so we kind of came into this nice little thing where I am helping build all of, obviously our marketing and showing off what we're doing, but we're really creating more of an experience now for families to learn how to sit, learn about marine life, how to reconnect with yourself in nature, and how to really help truly heal yourself.
And so that we can regulate ourselves as parents and also regulate our children and give them the support that they need to actually find what they love.
And so between all of it, now it's like intertwining for everybody in the family to work together and to be able to share this experience with people.
Mark Taylor:
Yeah. And I think that the thing that I love about it is kind of the messiness of it, which I think everyone can relate to.
It's that sense, I've got a plan. I kind of know this isn't how it's meant to be. I know I want it to look differently.
And like you say, even having, you know, decided to sell your house, decided that you're going to make your life look this certain way, there's lots of things that have to fall into place in order to make that work. And then it doesn't happen in the t, in sort of the time scale that you expect it to. And then you have to go with the flow.
And like I say, and then eventually all this sort of symmetry sort of happens and you end up finding everything kind of falling into place.
And I think when people sort of hear that enough times, they realize that, as we know, learning everything in life doesn't sort of go in that straight line. It's ups and downs, and it moves around all that time.
And I think sort of to be able to hear that, but also for you to be so sort of joyful in the way that you explain it and how it's come about, because it's a process for everyone, like, say, yourself and your husband and. And your side as well. It's like, that's kind of the point because you're living it all the time.
Danielle Vandehei:
Yeah.
It really honestly is such an interesting thing because I feel like so many people, you know, they go into the idea of, like, it has to be this particular way.
And the thing is, is, like, in the beginning, I get it because in my mind, when I first started the idea of sailing, I was like, I'm getting a catamaran and I'm going to the Bahamas. I am four and a half years in. I do not have a catamaran yet, and I am not invited to the Bahamas. But I'm okay with it.
I've actually learned that right now. Currently, the monohull is. Been a good shift for me.
And even just, like, learning small to, like, making steps forward, even though it's like, I wanted things to be a certain way, having it this way has been so much more valuable in the sense of, like, understanding what am I getting into, Because I've actually met families who. They went all in. They went and, you know, they. They sold their house and they bought a catamaran.
And a couple years later, they realized the family doesn't even love it anymore.
They're still stuck with a big boat and they're stressed out because they've been running up credit cards to pay for the life, and they're not figuring it out. And so it's not all going to be peaches and cream.
There are going to be the ups and downs, and, you know, there's going to be the challenges, like I said, for everybody in the family. Had to figure it all out together. And then also, you know, we. We have a certain plan.
We have this idea, but you have to learn to be adaptable and to be flexible with it. Because if the.
We can show that we are, as parents, also are flexible with it, then our kids will also be a little bit easier in the process because it's not as easy to. To just always go down the path of, like, we're going to. It's going to be perfect. And nothing ever ends up being perfect, to be honest.
Mark Taylor:
Yeah.
Danielle Vandehei:
So. Yeah.
Mark Taylor:
And so why don't you take us into. Just before you explain exactly what you're able to offer people in those experiences. What does your day to day life look like around that?
And also how does the education piece fit in?
Because I think people's version of what education and learning looks like outside of the state system can be a little bit mind blowing because you can't believe that it can look like that. But also, you know, where do those resources come from? Where do you have to go? Where do you have to be?
How does say the social element mix in and paint that picture for us?
Danielle Vandehei:
So it's been actually really quite an interesting journey.
I actually just recently had a conversation with another family that they are shifting currently themselves out of, you know, the homes, the, or the normal schools into the homeschooling idea.
And it really starts with us in the deschooling ourselves a little bit because for us like we are so set on these ideas of the structured and the standards and having to like constantly test and they have to have these certain things done by these certain ages. And something I've really learned is that our kids are meant to pick up things more.
For one, they learn a lot more in play and two, they're all going to have different levels of how quickly they, they pick things up and what maybe their interests are and where the interest really lies.
And so what I've really been learning myself from my son is that, you know, if we keep like, if we keep pushing certain things down that they're just not wanting to do at all, it's like hitting a brick wall. And now, yes, we have to teach in the 1, 2, 3s and the ABCs and things like that.
But at the same time there's ways to find it that where it will actually pique more of their interest and that you can, you can actually find it in a way that it's using their passions, their interests and then you can add those in. And so like right now we've been using, you know, the ocean as our classroom.
We, our son is learning, you know, he, he strolls, he's great at numbers, but struggling to read. But he loves his fish book and he loves to identify the fish and things like that.
So like right now I'm currently, you know, helping him read what each of those fishes fish are and we're sounding it out together and going down those paths and, and just kind of trying to slowly implement little things. I also noticed too, a lot of people, they're like, we have to do so many hours of school every day. It really doesn't need to be that much.
It, it's not that it, they learn so much when they are going out and playing.
My son has had gained so many life skills and also just traveling and doing the things like he has had days where he's like, mom, I want to do a survivor day on the island. And he went out on the island for the whole day. He cut wood for himself and made himself a fire. He went out and caught himself a couple of crabs.
He put him in the shell and he like cooked himself up dinner and he made himself on the, on the fire that he built. You know, he's doing these different things and he's learning different things in the sailing. He's also learning about knots.
He's learning about the winds. He learned how to, you know, drop an anchor. We've shifted in so many different ways of how we're, you know, learning and what we're learning.
And I keep finding, like, new things that, okay, what are your interests? Of what, what are you really into? Like right now he's do. He likes karate, which is why you might hear the pounding above my head.
And I keep trying to tell him to stop, but he's up top doing his karate, unfortunately not quite grabbing my, my motion of not right now. You know, and so they, it's like you have to, you have to be more open minded to the fact that it's. We're not trying to replicate school.
We're trying to really help them thrive and enjoying life of, and learning. Because the idea is like, just for us, like, I want to constantly follow and learn things that I'm interested in.
If you shove things though that I'm not into down my throat, I am just not going to pick it up. It doesn't retain for me. And that's the same for kids. They will pick up so much.
My kids practicing abacus with Chinese mental math, and he's great with it, but he's really into numbers, you know, and so finding the ways to, to open that level up for kids, I think is really important. And I think that's also, you know, right now with what we've been doing with traveling. We've, we've, we've lived different lifestyles.
We've done camper life, we've done the boat life. Now we've all.
And we've also, you know, done Airbnb travel and learned that he's also had to manage and figure out as we go into different cultures in different countries, how do I communicate with different kids of different languages that don't, don't speak my language.
You know, he has friends who speak French, friends that speak German, friends that speak Spanish, and somehow they always still all make it work because the language of play is just a beautiful thing for kids. And they always, you know, figure it out one way or another. And so I think that just opening up our minds as adults is like really the biggest start.
And that's why I always kind of tell parents, I'm like, it really starts with regulating ourselves to. And deschooling ourselves first. Because if we don't deschool ourselves and we don't also, we're stuck on this. Like, it has to be in the box.
Well, then it's going to be in the box and it's. You're going to have a struggle, especially trying to do it this kind of lifestyle.
But if you're more open minded, you know, and you're like, okay, you know, we start our morning. I kind of start with creative because I want, I'm like, let's get your. Let. Let's get the creative juices flowing first. So we do that in the morning.
We might move into like abacus or, you know, I might have him do the karate to get his body moving first. It's like kind of whatever seems to fit the day because also I kind of go off of his moods. Like, what is the mood like right now? Is it gonna be.
Is it kind of you woke up like you like, woke up like you're ready to go? Because there's some days where he will hit the ground running and he'll just like fly through everything.
Then there's some days where I could tell he's like kind of like lagging. So we might take an extra couple breaks.
Like yesterday he did some work for a little bit and then he's like, mom, I really want to go out in a snorkel. I'm like, okay, cool. Well, we're going to make an adventure and a, a little thing out of this.
We went out for a snorkel, but I also told him, I said, you know, we had this curriculum set up that recently that I've was playing with chat. And it's basically, you know, he's going to go pretend to be a marine biologist.
He's going to go observe what's in the water and he's going to find a couple different things and give me a wonder about it. And so we did that yesterday.
And then, you know, today we actually, if we go out, he's going to take the GoPro and he's going to go take a couple different pictures of different fish. So it's, it's getting different ideas and finding ways to just get creative with it.
And I think that's really the biggest, most important part when it comes to figuring this lifestyle out and just figuring out how to, you know, set yourself differently in, in the homeschool lifestyle with your kid.
Mark Taylor:
And I think the reality, of course, is that everyone gets frustrated with the normal state system, so to speak, because it can't, it can't be that individualized because there's a classroom of 30 odd people and there's only so many hours in the day and only so many members of staff to do it. You know, hopefully going forward with new technologies and those sorts of things, that'd be great if it could change like that.
Currently, that's not exactly where we are. So I, I love that kind of leading.
To see both sides of the coin is the fact that you have the opportunity to do it, but then you also have to unschool yourself because you kind of still perceive this is how school is, because it's what we knew growing up or what you see, what you see around us.
And I think the other thing that really strikes me is the fact that what you describe, I think, is what many parents will recognize as what happens up until you go to school.
You know, there's no test at the end of the day to see if your child could remember how to count when you're walking up the stairs and you're counting with them as they go.
It's just something that you do, you know, when you, when you're outside and you point to something and you're sort of saying it and talking to them, it all happens so naturally.
It just seems ridiculous that when you go to school in adverted commas, it has to change in that all those things we know have worked, that you do naturally as a, as a parent can't work in the schooling system just because it's mass schooling and those things.
And so I can see that sort of beautiful sort of symmetry and also that continuation of like, if you can understand that, you can just continue that as your children get older. And you know, we are the adults in the room, so to speak.
So like you say, you know, the curriculum you're trying to do in the experiences you're trying to do.
And like you say, you frame it in a way that you know is going to be supportive, but it doesn't have to be now we're sitting down for four hours because it's time to do English or whatever it happens to be. And I Think you described that so well.
Danielle Vandehei:
Yeah. So when I actually started my journey, I started reading a couple different books that really kind of put things in different perspectives for me.
One was the. The Call to the Wild and Free, and another was Unschool Yourself first and Free to Learn.
And I think it was Free to Learn was one of the ones that really dug deeper about where the school was, the whole education and schooling idea came from, and that it actually came from, you know, the government and from basically learning to break our willpower and to get us set up. Which makes sense because the idea is like, you're. You're.
You have to memorize these particular things, you're set in these specific ways, and then they want you to go and follow the line of like, you got to go get a good job. You got to go do these things. You got to, like, work this long and do all these things.
When it's like, if we opened up more, like I was saying to how, like helping our kids. Yes. Learn the necessities. So they obviously can speak and they can socialize and they can handle numbers and things and like that. They are necessary.
But if you also help them open up into what they're actually doing, we have more people that are not just going for the job for a paycheck, but they're gonna go for their passions and they're going to be able to create beautiful, amazing things out of what they love. And they're. They're not going to be sad, going to work. They're going to love it.
They're going to feel happier about the fact that they're going into that. You know, I mean, it's interesting because I've had some reels recently where people are just hate comments about, you know, you're.
You're killing your child's idea of what they could really become. What if they want to be a doctor or this. That. Well, if my son wants to be a doctor, he'll want to go learn about the body.
I will gladly help support that. I will help bring all those. Those resources to life. And that's where I say too, to people, it's really about.
Our intention is as a parent, like when we choose to do the homeschooling, it is really a lot. It lands a lot on us on the intention of how do we want to support and show up for them. And, you know, they get. So.
I've constantly talked to parents where I'm so nervous or I'm.
I'm worried about what I'm gonna do or the Curriculum is so overwhelming and it's like how do you want to help them realistically get real with yourself, like how do you want to help them? Do you want to see them thrive in what they enjoy? Will then start finding resources in what they actually like bring forth the things.
Because there's so many options to all the things. You just got to get creative with it. Which is also why I do like to utilize chat a little bit because I like to, you know, just use AI and help it.
You know, I always tell people if you're trying to figure out your passion, go tell it what you, what your passions are, what your skills are, what you would like to do in your life and have it give you ideas, you know, and that's what I do even for the same for my kid. I like let it know like he's into karate, he's into this, he's into that, but he's a rambunctious kid. He doesn't want to sit still for very long.
So how can I make this fun and exciting and it gives me different ideas and then we pick and choose what, what actually works well for him, you know, and I, that's where again it's all about our intention.
Mark Taylor:
And I just want to touch on, on the well being element there because I think from a traditional education standpoint, well being is a big thing currently, but it's big. It's almost because we're, we're taking the life out of children for all the opposite reasons that you just explained.
And then we're trying to do something that helps them because they already struggling.
And so in your experience, just by living this life of following your passions, having a different way of living each day, that must just give you the environment where well being becomes an integral part, as it should be for everybody, that enables you to thrive. And so while that isn't to say that you're not still going to do some of the techniques maybe you would learn in traditional school.
It's in a completely different way. You're not trying to put, you're not trying to put a sticky plaster over a broken leg because that's how they feel.
You're just giving them the tools they need to support themselves as they learn and grow and take their sort of steps forward.
Danielle Vandehei:
Yeah, so one of the biggest things actually that I've been really gearing into aside of like helping him with his passions is the well being side.
Emotional regulation, socialization, making sure that we as like him and myself, you know, we can all regulate, we can all like be happy but you know, you help, happy, healthy and then also, you know, working through all the things in a manner that you're not just like feeling stumped all the time and that you're frustrated about it because you know, I think that's also the hard part with school is, you know, we send our kids to school and it's just, you know, you're throwing them to the wolves of like 30 plus kids in a classroom, you know, and they all have to like sit there and go back and forth with each other where. And you're not even there to help support that. Like, they just have to deal with it. Like basically.
And the teacher may or may not know what ends up happening.
Whereas like right now I've gotten to have multiple times where my kid is getting like we just did a world school hut recently and there was 12 different families, probably like 15 or so kids of all ages. My son's 7.
He had a couple of like issues with a 10 and a 210 year olds and they came that he, the, the nice part was, is that as things were happening, he was able to come right over to me, have the conversation.
We talked about what he could do, what he, what he was doing, what he, they did, how to work through it, you know, and then he was able to go back with the right tools for it. And immediately it was an instantaneous like, let's work through this together.
And that's happened actually a few times recently as they're starting to, you know, get in bigger groups.
They're getting also at the point where all of them are starting to learn their own boundary lines because that's also a huge piece too is how do I set my boundaries and how do I respect your boundaries? And we all know where our boundaries lie.
And so those are all like huge parts that I also think are super important too and to me are honestly probably more up on the level of what you really need to remember versus just about the 1, 2, threes and the ABCs. Like I am like all about the emotional regulation and how do we have our conversations. My son can have conversations with every age category.
It blows my mind.
And honestly every time he's talk, especially when he talks to older people and they have conversations and they come back like I am just so amazed at the conversations that I can have with this kid. He's a seven year old and he's just, you know, but it's because he's, he's experienced in that he's had.
He's not just stuck In a room with 30 kids of his own age. He is in the world with people of all ages.
And, you know, even when we first started this, and he first kind of like, he'd get nervous at first about going in and connecting with kids. He'd see kids and he's like, oh, I'm a little, you know, I want to go play with them, but I'm scared.
And so the first few times when we first started, I would go up with him and I would help introduce him. I didn't, you know, sit there and ask a few questions, chat with them. And then it was funny because I'd slowly back out.
Now he's at the point, though, that he knows. He. We get to a place and he sees kids and he's like, peace out. I'm gone. I found a kid I'm gonna go, you know, I'm gonna go talk to.
And he makes his way out in any different category. And he'll even do it with older people, too.
He doesn't, you know, if there's no kids around, he'll still have conversations with all the older people. He doesn't care.
But it's because of having these experiences and also the regulation of understanding these things that he's like, okay, this is how I handle this one, and this is how I talk to these guys. And, you know, he starts to learn those different things. And I think that that really makes a huge difference of how we.
We portray ourselves in the world as well. Yeah.
Mark Taylor:
And that ability not to just kind of. I think that's a great skill. You must be able to do it by age eight and a half. And then there's something else you need to do by age 9.
I mean, life doesn't work like that. And I think one of the big takeaways.
I did a whole season with Professor Dr. Gare Grouse recently, and his big philosophy was that one, children can only aspire to what they know exists. So the more you give them that opportunity to learn in so many different ways, the more they're going to be. And also that learning is 0 to 99.
And so understanding that you'll learn today and then you'll learn tomorrow, and it doesn't all have to be done by 16, 18, or whenever you're supposed to traditionally finish learning. It's. It's your entire life. And.
And when you realize there is no end game, it's just a continuation of everything that you're doing that just takes so much pressure away. And then, like, say you can relax into into what life is.
And, and I think that immediately just changes you and the environment and everything that you're, you're trying to achieve.
Danielle Vandehei:
Yeah. I always say like the idea isn't to get him set up for where he's got all these certain credentials by a certain point it's really love what you do.
Learn to love learning. Because I mean I'm still, right now, I'm constantly learning.
And then it's funny, even with sailing, that's actually something I, I, I will always say you never stop learning. We constantly are learning new things.
Like even my husband right now, he's, I, like I just made a real recently about basically if you want to come live on a boat, you need to expect that you're going to learn this, you're going to learn that, you're going to learn to do it all like because that you're, you're off grid living.
You have to learn how to be an electrician, you have to learn to do the refrigeration, you have to learn to do water systems, you have to do all these different things and it's okay because if you enjoy that then you'll follow that and it feels good, you know. And the same with our kids, like if they enjoy it, they're going to want to learn more about it.
If they don't really and like if there's no peaked interest, they're just like eh, whatever, it's just something I have to do. And that especially as a parent when you're trying to teach them is really difficult, you know.
And so that's why it's just always like if we can find the easier routes, how to intrigue them, it'll be a lot easier for them and ourselves.
Mark Taylor:
Absolutely. And you don't want that first total to be a 20 foot wall where you're like there's no way around, there's no way over.
This is going to be hard to begin with. You know, let's just do it differently to start with, let's not have a wall. Amazing.
So take us in then to what you're practically doing now in terms of what people listening are going.
I want to experience that, I want to kind of understand that works what it looks like and in terms of what you offer, in terms of, you know, how long can they spend time with you, what can they learn, what can they do and what is it you're trying to sort of give them as an experience and where they go from there.
Danielle Vandehei:
So we have over the, like I said, it's been A four and a half year journey of figuring it all out. But we finally have come up with a. We call it Water World Micro Expeditions.
And it's basically an experience where families or adventurers can come on board. We teach them sailing techniques, we teach them all about the marine life. I'm also. Right now we have decided that we will stay around in one area.
We're in San Blas, Panama currently. Which I love this place because it really steps you away from the city life. It's a bunch of islands.
There's really like the indigenous are here and they have each. Each family owns like one of the islands and there's a very few people on it. Some of them have like a little bit of a.
Like very small things going on. Like your. Your store is a. Is a little hut kind of thing and there's only one. One island with a store.
Otherwise everything is brought in by a veggie boat. Basically they'll bring you fresh veggies and stuff to your boat. They bring us our Price Mart, they bring us our Amazon, which is great to our boat.
But so the idea is that you're able to disconnect from the like from basically the city life and the chaos of life. So you're getting to connect in nature. You're learning sailing. We get to tap into the marine life. Like I said, my son is teaching all about the.
The fish and everything with people while my husband teaches all the. The wording for the. The sales and everything. I've done all of it. I understand it but I enough like am I invested in teaching the sailing?
No, I'm more de. In depth about the connection.
Teaching people about, you know, healing, how they can also like I integrated in by also sharing people with people are why the Kong and ionizer is such a beautiful thing. Because how it affect like you know, we're what we're putting into the water, what we're drinking, our health.
So it's kind of a mix of just a little bit of like how boat life can be, but also how we can like really re. Regulate with ourselves and connect with ourselves and our families and be out into the ocean and so learning a little bit about the ocean as well.
So it's kind of like a mesh pot, I guess you could say.
Mark Taylor:
Yeah, that worked so brilliantly though because I think from everything that you've said so far, you can kind of see how that is just life and, and. And I think then you get a sense of it doesn't need to be. You know, this is the workshop and this is the experience you're going to have in here.
All the sheets that you need to learn and you can tick all those things.
And then you think, oh, no, this is, this is about like say, those conversations, those experiences, the chances to experience life differently than your traditional day to day life, as it were. And. And I think the one thing that you can never take away is, is that you only know it's different when you've experienced it's different.
It's a little bit like when, like say you're working a million miles an hour and you have a week or two off and you're like, I knew I was kind of busy, but only after you kind of deregulate and you start to feel that you've had a holiday, you're like, oh my goodness, how on earth did I even manage that? You know, to keep going.
Danielle Vandehei:
Exactly. So, yeah, and then we are also working a little bit with the indigenous.
And so we're starting to bring that also in to also bring a little bit of culture into it so people get to see a little bit more.
I am also trying to work on a few projects right now of like, setting up a coral restoration idea possibly or something, working with someone doing that. So we're kind of. I'm slowly building a little bit more and more.
The overall vision though is not to just stay here actually, because we actually weren't even going to start this immediately.
We were waiting until we got into a bigger boat, but I had backpackers come on Reese, like the beginning of the year, and it kind of like just popped that fear for us of, I don't have to wait, I can take on a small family at a time and keep it intimate, which is, I think, really nice. And then, you know, start bringing people on, sharing these experiences.
Our vision is that we're going to be getting another boat here hopefully by the end of next year some point and get into a bigger boat.
And when we get into the bigger boat and everything is kind of built up and like things are flowing, the goal is to circumnavigate more and keep these expeditions moving with people who are also interested in seeing different other areas. Because like myself, I want to see the French Polynesia. My son wants to go see the Great Barrier Reef, so, you know, and the Pacific side.
So the goal is, you know, to start making it to where that point where we'll be able to do expeditions going in these different areas at some point and keep learning from different places in the world. Because the ocean is so big I mean, we just actually took. We did a world school hub in the Maldives.
And it was funny because everyone's like, why did you go there? You went from ocean to ocean and you're still in the water, and it's like, still pretty.
I'm like, but they're different oceans and they're different fish, and they're different things. Like. And so, you know, I'm like, we want to keep learning, and we, like, we got to swim with whale sharks and Santas out there.
It was totally different vibe. And so, like, that overall, that is the vision for what Water World is going to grow into. But for right now, we, you know, we've set it up this way.
I'm actually working on putting together like a. A community kind of thing in the beginning of next year, I think, with a couple other boats and kind of set some of the things up like that.
And so it's a slow, slow building process, just like everything else. Like we were just saying, you know, everything. It starts slow, and you have a vision. You take steps forward into how it's going to build.
And I think that's also kind of the most beautiful part, is taking the steps. You know, it doesn't. Like we said in the beginning, it doesn't have to be perfect. Nothing. Nothing is perfect in the beginning.
But if we start pushing past our fears, we start building a plan, we have a vision, we get clear about it, and we start taking the steps towards it, a lot of beautiful things happen.
Mark Taylor:
Yeah, I was just thinking there about the person saying, you went from one ocean to another ocean. That's like saying to every other person that, you know, you went from one piece of land to a different piece of land.
Oh, yeah, that's what I do all the time. Anyway. The suddenly struck me as being hilarious at that point. Obviously, the acronym FIRE is really important to us.
And by that we mean feedback, inspiration, resilience, and empowerment. What is it that strikes you when you see that? Whether it's one word that jumps out.
Danielle Vandehei:
Or a combination, I think resilience really jumps out because especially if you want to do something different, you have to be resilient to the fact that things are going to change, things are going to come up, you're going to come through with some of the challenges that you did not expect. And being resilient is one of the most big, best superpowers you can have in this.
And that that will get you a lot farther than just being somebody who is like. You get fearful every time something happens and you let it basically crush all your dreams.
Mark Taylor:
Amazing. I think that's really, really true, Danielle. Thank you so much. Indeed. It's been fascinating to listen to it.
And I think, like, all these things, you can see a picture, like, say, you can see a website, you can do all those things. But there's nothing like actually speaking to someone and hearing the raw emotion, the understanding and the reality of life.
And I think that's what I love about podcasting, is what I love about vanilla chat to so many people. So tell people where they can go to find out more about what you're doing. And we'll have links to those things in the descriptions as well.
Danielle Vandehei:
So I am on Facebook at Danielle Marie Vande Hei, or you can find me at Instagram at Legacy Underscore through Motherhood. And then we have a website actually now for Waterworld. It's www.waterworldmicroexpeditions.com.
Mark Taylor:
Amazing. Thank you so much. Indeed. Keep up the great work. You can go and tell your son you can kick away and karate away to bizarre content.
And it didn't disrupt anything at all. I wouldn't have known if you hadn't mentioned it apart from. But I appreciate the reality of it.
And for those people listening, you know, I, I, I can see Danielle here in the boat. I can see the surroundings that she's in.
And it's so nice to be able to have a conversation with someone who's literally living like, say, that different world in that sort of dream sense in terms of building something that you really, really wanted to do. Yeah. So thanks so much. Indeed.
