Woman "trapped" on a boat for a decade details amazing "escape"
A woman has recalled her turbulent childhood spent "trapped" a boat with her parents, detailing how she made her "escape".
Suzanne Heywood was just seven years old when her parents told her she, along with her younger brother Jonathan, would be pulled out of school to go on a three-year voyage around the world.
The family of four from the UK set out on their quest to recreate Captain Cook’s infamous third and final voyage around the globe, which ended up taking a decade instead of the promised three years.
While her parents thought it was the trip of a lifetime and often described the opportunity as a “privilege”, Suzanne has since compared it to being locked up in prison.
Now 55 years old, Suzanne has shared her tale of survival on TikTok, and recalled her 10 years at sea in her tell-all memoir Wavewalker.
“My father said we would be back in three years’ time, and that my dog would be waiting for me, and my friends and school and everything would go back to normal,” the author said in a now-viral video.
“But in fact, it was almost 10 years before we came back, and I spent that time trapped on a boat, unable to go to school or have normal friendships.”
Despite her father assuring her the “trip would be safe”, Suzanne claimed it was “incredibly dangerous”, sharing details of a perilous journey from South Africa to Australia where the boat hit an “enormous storm”.
“The waves became bigger and bigger, and finally one crashed over the back of the boat, through the deck and out the side,” she recalled.
“I was thrown, a little girl at 7, against the ceiling of the cabin and against the wall, fracturing my skull and breaking my nose. Three days later, we found a tiny little island in the middle of the Indian Ocean where I had multiple head operations without anaesthetic.”
In order to get through her "very strange" childhood, Suzanne recalled how she was determined to get an education to live a normal life.
“As it became clear my parents had no intentions of going back, I decided I had to educate myself as it was the only lifeline that I had,” she told the hosts of The Morning Show.
“The only way to get off this boat was to get an education, it was my only hope to ensure I had a ‘normal life’ for myself one day.”
While remote education wasn't an option in 1969, Suzanne enrolled in an Australian correspondence school when she was 13.
she began studying in the small cabin of the boat, which she found challenging both practically, and academically as she “had missed a lot of education”.
Then, when she was 16, and her brother 15, her parents enrolled the two teenagers into a school in New Zealand while they continued sailing.
Despite the gaps in her education, Suzanne landed a spot at Oxford University, and after saving up money she’d earned working on a farm, Suzanne bought a one-way plane ticket back to the UK.
Since going public with her story, which she was inspired to do after the death of her husband in 2018, Suzanne's book instantly became a bestseller, and she continues to work through the trauma caused by her "unstable" childhood.
Suzanne's extraordinary tale has captured the hearts of millions, with thousands of online fans hailing her bravery.
“Wavewalker is one of the best books I’ve read, I’m so sorry you went through all that,” one person replied, while another said, “Thank you for the this! Your story inspires me and I can change my life no matter when and how.”
Image credits: Instagram / Suzanne Heywood