Tanya Rabe HELP 13-YEAR-OLD SAILOR KAT GROW HER ANIMAL SUPPORT COMMUNITY Dogs have an uncanny ability to bring people together. Two complete strangers who may have ordinarily passed one another with a simple ‘Hello’, begin a conversation about their dogs. Last week I had the pleasure of meeting two spirited women within my Dogs Who Sail community. Thirteen-year-old Katarina set sail with her parents and two Cocker Spaniels in June 2019 aboard their Lagoon 56. The family’s adventure began in the Mediterranean where Kat and her parents spent the summer sailing between Italy, Greece, and Croatia, becoming acquainted with their new home. Their plan was to circumnavigate the world, but as they have experienced recently with the Covid-19 pandemic, sometimes best laid plans are forced to change. Kat’s mother Karen explained, “We haven’t really got any plans now, originally we were going to be sailing until we finished and that would be until we got fed up. A lot of it was going to be on how Katarina got on.”
When the family first bought the boat, everything was new and exciting. Initially it felt like an extended holiday in a heavenly part of the world. Kat was able to invite some of her friends from Europe onboard during the summer school vacation. The girls would spend their days jumping off the back of the boat, swimming, snorkelling, and having a blast, just like teenage girls do. It wasn’t until her friends returned back to their normal lives in Spain and the family
Kat.
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