Island Life Magazine Ltd February/March 2014 | Page 22

INTERVIEW

Around the
world - hardly
your normal
family holiday!
By Peter White

M

ost parents with two young children under the age
of five would perhaps regard ‘an adventure’ as a trip
to a holiday camp chalet or searching for tiny sea
creatures in rock pools.
But Jason and Amanda Lawrence decided they would like to
go in search of slightly bigger sea creatures. And for more than
three years their ‘holiday chalet’ was a rugged trimaran, capable
of sailing the seven seas. Jason’s dream had always been to sail
around the world. The former diver claims: “I don’t think there
is any greater challenge than circumnavigating the globe using
nature.”
The voyage of a lifetime was eight years in the making, by
which time Jason had married Amanda, and sons Jean-Jacques
and Louis had been born. Jason warmed up for the expedition
by making a solo trans-Atlantic crossing. He said: “I spent a lot
of time on my own; it was quite rough and I was in quite a small
boat. It took 24 days to get from the Caribbean to the Azores, and
then 12 more days to get to England, including four days in a big
storm in Biscay, with waves breaking over the deck. But that was
when I decided I wanted to sail around the world.”
He travelled to the United States to buy a suitable boat, and
found Pegasus, a catamaran that was in ‘pretty bad condition’.
He said: “She had no engines and had been in the boatyard in
New Hampshire for seven years. I thought it would take two
weeks to put it back together, but it took me a month.”
Jason tested the boat down the east coast of America, and
knew it was the one, even though Amanda still hadn’t seen it.
Jason picked the boat up from Virginia on February 8, 2008,
and headed for Charleston, South Carolina. He explained: “It
was very important for me that Amanda and the children had
a good experience for the first couple of months of the voyage.
They all loved it and we just motored very easily, anchoring and
going ashore and just getting the hang of the boat.
“We all got on the boat together on March 8, 2008, and on July
4 Louis was two and Jean-Jacques was just four. We travelled
dow n to Florida and then to the Bahamas where we spent two
months, before we decided we needed to leave. So did Amanda
and the kids want to fly home, or would we pull up the anchor
and just go?”

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