Liam’s School

Liam was quite adamant that he wanted to do high school online. I of course was not in a place to say no. I hold my doctorate in distance education and was teaching online myself.

We looked around and while there were some private online high schools that looked interesting we were pleased to discover that Maine had not one but TWO online high schools to choose from. We explored both and decided upon Maine Connections Academy.

We chose MCA for several reasons but the largest was that they were the most “Asynchronous” of the two. Each class met live for only about an hour a week and the rest was on your own schedule. They were forgiving speed wise allowing students to work ahead or slow down as needed. It was a real blessing. And there were a few profiles of students who were traveling for work or sports, and traveling was in our set of goals.

It took some time to find our “groove” with the online school, online asynchronous education requires a great deal of self-motivation and focus. Two things that were difficult for Liam to find in the beginning.

Luckily we discovered that Liam and I have one very useful trait in common, we both work like madmen when we’re sitting in a café or coffee house. And double lucky just across the street from our apartment was “The Proper Cup Coffee House” which we made our primary home for school.

Then COVID happened and the world shut down. Little changed school or work wise for us since we were both already fully online but the loss of the cafe time hit us hard. And it was just about then that Liam said that we should stop waiting and should just move on the boat and go roaming.

Moving on the boat and traveling.

The move to the boat was simple enough school-wise. We transitioned to a 4G hotspot for the internet and later for Starlink for the internet, but we still found we worked best in random cafés. Once they started to open we discovered the best cafes to work in all up and down the US East Coast. And since we tend to linger in locations, tend to visit the same cafe every day, and order the exact same thing every day, it didn’t take long before the cafe owners remembered us even after long absences.

The Logistics of Online High School Afloat

Since we were using an online charter school we needed to be careful to maintain our Maine state residency, which as frustrating since Maine has an income tax that I’d need to keep paying. Still Maine is home, it’s where the boat is registered, Portland is still our Home Port so we were all set.

Every state is different rule wise so I was glad that we were in the clear and that everyone thought this was the greatest adventure ever for Liam to be taking.

The day-to-day logistics were pretty basic. Up. Breakfast. Pack up the Backpacks. Into the dinghy, or if we were tied to a dock we’d hop off the boat, then off to a cafe to work until lunch. Then back to the boat. Where Liam was done for the day about 50% of the time and I was back to work for much longer. With Liam’s day essentially being from 8 am till noon each day I started getting up at 5 am to get a head start on my own work so that we’d have more afternoon time together.

The school’s flexibility did cause me some anxiety when I would stress about Liam falling behind each and every term only to race and catch up in the final weeks. This was the pattern each term except for the last term when he did the math on how much work he’d need to do in order to finish school SIX WEEKS EARLY and … he did it.

Our Marina for three weeks

After spending a full summer at Spring Point Marina in South Portland Maine during our broken transmission adventure we knew we’d need to spend Liam’s graduation week there. But with additional work to do on the boat we decided on three weeks. A week before graduation, the week of graduation, and a week after. This gave us time to order some parts, work on getting our windlass FINALLY installed and to enjoy some family time with our family for Liam’s graduation.

The work on the boat was simple enough, we cut up some starboard to make a mounting platform for the windlass. Mounted her. Wired her up. And trimmed our anchor chain so it would “mostly” fit in the now smaller chain locker.

Then there was Liam’s graduation. Simple and quick with a small class at the Portland City Hall and now we have a “free Liam”. At least for a short while.

Next Adventures.

Liam is hoping to get a job as a deckhand on a random motor yacht somewhere, we’ve picked up his ENG1, and he’ll do the STCW later this summer, and will also end up probably picking up a few more classes and certifications over the summer to fatten up his CV.

But for now Liam is Free for the summer.