Home is where this family drops anchor

'Hey, Mai-Mai," Leighia Murray called to her daughter from the bow of the family's sailboat, which was recently docked in Oyster Bay Harbor.

Maya, 9, glanced up to see her mother pointing overboard at a white sock drifting alongside the boat's hull. "No way," she called back. "It's Fynn's turn," she said, referring to her younger brother, and disappeared into the boat's cabin.

Below deck, an argument broke out over whose turn it was to retrieve the mutinous clothing from the water. When Fynn, 8, won a rare victory over his sister, Maya re-emerged to fish the sock from the harbor's waters.

Rescuing laundry from the water is but one of the unusual chores the Murray children perform routinely, if not without complaint. They also pump up the dinghy, wash the wheelhouse windows before heading out to sea and read nautical charts on the open seas.

For the most part, though, they find few burdens aboard the 56-foot custom steel sailboat named Tranquility. In fact, the family enjoys life on the boat so much that they have stayed all year-round since 2005, turning the boat into a home, office, schoolhouse and playground.

From the boat, Cameron Murray, 36, and his wife, Leighia, 34, operate a mobile marine business called Trans Marine Pro that offers renewable energy platforms to boat owners who want to maximize their vessel's battery life, reduce dependency on fossil fuels and minimize their carbon "keel print."

The Murrays anchor in Oyster Bay Harbor during the summer and sail down the East Coast in winter, installing solar panels, wind generators, water makers and more onto sailboats as they go.

They also offer replacement parts and service to eco-conscious sailors and consult with owners on the most effective ways to power their vessels. This year they will work on boats around Long Island, in the Chesapeake Bay, Connecticut, coastal Florida and, if they're lucky, the Caribbean Sea.

Leighia Murray home-schools her children. Long wooden bookshelves in the cabin are stocked with titles such as "The Hal Roth Seafaring Trilogy," "Advanced First Aid Afloat" and "Dorling Kindersley Handbooks: Whales, Dolphins and Porpoises."

"We study wherever we go," said the former Montessori preschool teacher, who adapts her children's academic curriculum to the places her husband finds work.

"They learn about Darwin and biology in the Galapagos, and American history and the Constitution in Annapolis," she said. "We want our kids to experience these things in real life, not just read about them."

When they're set free from schoolwork and chores, Maya and Fynn spend much of their time on deck, scurrying up the boat's masts, swinging from the halyards or jumping into the water.

Maya is particularly agile, and talks of joining Cirque du Soleil as she somersaults, first forward and then back, over the boat's rigging. Fynn takes after his father and spends long hours in the boat's workshop, taking things apart and putting them back together again.

For the family, life at sea has more benefits than drawbacks.

"Sure, we miss having a backyard," said Cameron Murray, "but Maya and Fynn have an ocean instead of grass. How many kids can swim with baby dolphins out their back door?"

Both children were in diapers when the boat became their home, and neither can imagine living on land. "My favorite thing is catching fresh fish," said Maya, "like Mahi-mahi and shark. Shark tastes like chicken, sort of."

Her brother agrees: "I like fishing and sailing the sea," Fynn said.

Beyond entrepreneurship and environmentalism, the Murrays said they are also trying to raise their children to be idealists and concerned global citizens.

When an earthquake struck Haiti in 2010, they co-founded a humanitarian mission called Sailors Without Borders, filling the front berth of their boat with four tons of donated cargo -- medical supplies, clothing, food and 2,500 pairs of children's shoes -- and sailing the goods to the devastated island.

"The sea is in our blood," said Cameron Murray, whose grandfather managed a boatyard in the Bay of Islands, New Zealand, where his wife was born and raised. He grew up in Hawaii.

"We met in New Zealand and worked our way to Hawaii on other people's boats," he said. "We always said we'd sail back to New Zealand someday, but here, on this boat, we're already home."