 My name is Rachel Sanichal. I'm a program and development coordinator here at the library. And I'm very happy to have Yanin Yi here this evening to talk about her adventure and Steve's homeschooling on a 48-foot catamaran that they built in Hawaii, had two sons, and sailed around the globe homeschooling their two sons. And Yanin Yi was born in South Korea. From there, she went to Germany. Steve, who's tonight's videographer. And I've got Mary in Vienna, went to Hawaii to build the catamaran. And off they went on their amazing adventure around the world. And so I'm really excited to hear the rest of the story. And there are snacks for after the program. There are books for sale. And I'm going to bring up some water in a moment. So please help me welcome Yanin Yi. Thank you for having me. Thank you, Rachel, for organizing. And I'm kind of glad it didn't snow to this year. I was worried about the weather. That's one of the reasons why I postponed it to March, thinking that February would be into snowing. And so I'm talking about my book, and it's called Ring of Fire. And first I started to write this book for my grandchildren because I have two children, two sons. And they are half Korean and half the other white. And then when I see my grandchildren, they are already one fourth Korean and then three fourths the other. So I thought maybe they would really disappear into something that they wouldn't really remember. So that's the way I started to start writing. And then I kept going. So that's why the book became first, the 70 page. It's mostly about my life in Korea. And after that, it goes to, like Rachel said, I was going to Europe. And then I met Steve in the language school in Southern Germany. And then we went off to Hawaii, and third boat. So first part, I talk a lot about my grandmother. And my grandmother and my mother, they raised me after the Korean War. And so we pretty much grew up and lived in a very poverty stricken, like a little ghetto, like area. But my grandmother has a great character. She was born in 1888, the year of a tiger. That's the way I figured out her age, because my son was an honor, the one that's living in a very born in the year of a tiger. So I had to subject by 12 years of set of time. And then so it came out 1888. That fit my grandmother's age. And she was a daughter of a healer of Chinese medicine at that time. And yet she wasn't sent to school because she was a girl. And her half-brothers were sent to school. And later on, they became principals and the teachers. And so she was during the occupation, during the occupation in 19, so 1913. So she was young. And I think she was married some of those times. And she was married to a very poor man who liked gambling. So when she died, she was left with a lot of debt. And so she couldn't manage her family and children. So she went to Japan. Eventually, she reunited with children. And so she's a very hard-working woman and quite a character. And so I wrote a lot about her. And my mother and one of her siblings were born in Japan during the war. And so she also talked about the fact that she, when she was 13, she went to school in the mornings and in the afternoons, she was in a factory, ammunition factory. And so I was trying to figure out if that was because she was Korean children and maybe all the children at that age were spending their time in the afternoons in factories. So that I don't really know about my grandmother was there. So I'm going to read the part that my grandmother was really quite a character. And so I think I need glasses. I'm at an age where I cannot see too well with glasses and I cannot see too well without glasses. So harmony means that it's in Korean as grandmother. So that's what I refer to in my book. Harmony was annoyed when someone stood around with their hands in their pockets as if there weren't anything to do. When my cousin did this, she saw that their pants pocket shot. Once my cousin put on one of his new pair of pants with the pockets on shot, he was flabbergasted. He held his hands in the air. Oh, I left with exaggerated gusto at his dismay. And harmony gave him a user's stony look. I see a strange parallel between my harmony and Zorova the Greek. He says, I have hands and they do the job. That is what my harmony would have said so. I'm convinced that harmony and Zorova have met. If not, they should. These two people knew how to make things work. So when I think about all the things my grandma did all those years, I lived with her until I was 16. And my mother was working wherever she could find work. And so that was just the, OK, we didn't have anything. The only thing we had was a very clean room. I talked about that. That's like, it's extra clean because we didn't have any furniture, so we didn't have anything. We just had a little thing to put our clothes together. And I even thought about that. I remember her in her typical Korean traditional dress. It's called a hanbok with very pork cumbersome, big dresses. And usually it's all white. And then they are quite clean. I don't ever see, remember seeing her being like a grimy and always clean. And then I had to help her holding the end with ironed holding the end like, not like the iron boards here. And so now I'm getting older myself. And I have two grandchildren. And so I think when I was born she was in her 60s. It's good, my grandmother was 40s in the 60s. So she kind of really raised me and two of my cousins. So then my mother was born in Japan during the war, during the war, during occupation. And so she was the youngest one out of four. And she was very optimistic. And a very happy person to begin. You can really tell the difference because she was protected by all the siblings. And but they couldn't get away from there being Koreans. And they lived in their own little ghetto-like setting. But basically she was a quite happy kind of person. So like I mentioned that she worked in ammunition factory when she was 13 years old. And after that, I think when she was 14, they were in 1945, when she was 14. And then they went to take him back to Korea. So she worked, the teenagers lived in a very kind of hard time. And so this is a little piece of writing I did for my mom. In spite of the circumstantial hardship, Oma kept her innate sense of beauty throughout her life. She was quick to pick up dance steps. And she was a popular dance partner at a party. She loved to dress fashionably and sewed and knitted without patterns. She often said, after visiting a store, mine would be better than that store in the store. And hers was better. She improved the style by adding her own knitted or crocheted orders. Art folded into her life seamlessly as if war never happened in her lifetime. And so I was born in 1948, three years after World War II, 1945. And then Korean War happened in 1950. So I was two years old. So my grandmother and my mother, my grandmother and my mom, and my caring me and three of us moved around. I think they spent some time on a ship because they were evacuating the town. And they were moving from one town to another, looking for a place to live and stay alive. I lived until 16. Until 16, my grandmother was with me. And then from 17 to 19, 18, I lived with my mom. And then my grandmother moved in with us later on. And I went to pre-med in Busan when I was 19. And then during the school break, I went to Thailand. And then from Thailand, they were talking about the possibility for me to go to Germany. And I didn't really know at the time that apparently South Korea and West Germany had a very sympathetic relationship because both of the countries were divided nations from the onset of the Cold War, 1947. So a lot of our Koreans were exported to West Germany as laborers, nurses. And so they really welcomed South Koreans. And then, of course, North Koreans were on the other side in East Germany. And so I didn't know too much of that. And then my parents had a lot of German friends. So they started talking about my possibility of going to Germany. So I did. I went to Munich. And I had to register as a student. And then I went to one of the language schools, which is I required the language and requirement for me to continue my school. And I met Steve in Southern Germany, one of the language schools. And from there, we got married, and we went to Hawaii. And we built the 48-foot catamaran. And it took us, I think, three years. And three years to launch the catamaran, we called the Merakai, Song of the Sea in Hawaiian. And then it took us another three, four years to equip with a mast or the hardware and things that we need. And also, we had to get used to how to sail the boat. And not only just learning to sail itself, but we also had to learn how to handle Merakai itself. It's almost like raising a kid. Because this was specifically a boat that we built the boat and the designers. So there are only two of these boats. So we don't know how this boat will react, how we're going to handle it in a different kind of weather. And if there are some kind of stuff out of boats, then they have histories how to handle the boat. So that was a lot of fun thing in Hawaii. We were sailing from island to island and finding out. And all the channels can be very rough between the islands. And so we used a lot of testing all out. And also, there was a good place for us to learn how to navigate. We didn't know how to. Or you can see where we are and read the chart. But then we actually had to learn to navigate a celestial navigation. And so we learned to do that between the islands. And of course, you can see the land. But then when I started doing that, and then I was going by the boat. And then I learned something called a line of position. And I drew a line of position. And what it says is this line of position. I hope it was on this line. So I got so excited. I actually made a line. So I said, oh, look at that. I drew this line. And it goes right through here. But actually, when you go out there, it doesn't really know. So that was the beginning. We learned how to sail. And we made two different trips. First trip was in 1979. November, we left Hawaii. And then we were supposed to be testing our boat for the first ride from Hawaii to Bora Bora. It took us 21 days. And that was quite exciting because we really didn't know what it was like to sail for 21 days. I think about 2,000 miles. And we were very diligent taking sun shots every day and drawing the lines and making the positions every day. And then I think on 20 days. So it was at night before. We were expecting to see Bora Bora the next morning. And that night, I was in my midnight watch. I usually went from midnight to either two or from two to four hours, something like that. And I think we did four hours, I don't remember. And night, maybe we did two hours. And the weather was good. And Bora was reminding, taking care of herself. And I was sitting down and playing with this little transistor radio. And all of a sudden, I was getting this radio reception from Hawaii. And I was going, oh, my god. I think, oh, I cannot be here. I cannot be. It just cannot be. So I went about 2,000 miles away. So I was awake. And then I was going, oh, my god. I went down and looked at the chart. And I come back up. And it was dark. And you cannot see anything else. And I don't know everything. I don't know all the stars. So I was just so worried going up and down. And then I couldn't really tell Steve that this is what happened. And then I was going. And so it was his watch is coming up. And I didn't say anything. I just went to bed. And I couldn't go to sleep. I couldn't tell him. And then I think I sort of fell asleep. And then also he says, yeah, I love. There's a Bora Bora right ahead of us. And I looked at it. I was like, oh, my god. And then I think I fell asleep. And then I ran around. I told the people and then other sailors. They said that happens all the time. That's the cloud formation. And so I thought that was really spooky. And I have this one section in a dirt room. So I think Denmark is kind of fun to hear this call this time of the year. One day in the dirt rooms, Steve decided to go for a swim. He stripped and stood on the top of the cabin as the boys yelled, how about the sharks, dad? He brushed their question off in a dismissive way with his hand gesture and poised it to dive into the oily looking, smooth water. And the boys shouted, look, shark. We ran to the station and saw the shark spin, silently slicing through the oily water as it circled the megalocytes, the boys through in some perishable items. And without hesitation, the shark attacked them. After that incident, we didn't talk about swimming in the ocean again. Instead, we walked around on the hot deck with wet t-shirts and headgear hiding behind sunglasses to escape from the heat and glare of the sun. We wallowed in the hot sun that stole all the air from us. And when we saw dark clouds on a distant horizon, we got excited. The rain and wind gave us a relief from the heat and water to wash the salty deck. If the rain lasted long enough, we caught fresh rainwater in plastic water bottles. We ran, we read the rhyme of the ancient mariner to dramatize where we were. We read this every time, four times, we crossed the equator. Day after day, we stuck, no breath, no motion, as either as a painted ship upon a painted ocean, water, water, water everywhere, nor any drop to drink. And then we saw a cloud in the distant horizon, and the glassy pane of water changed into ripples. Formless clouds moved into the hazy horizon, bringing in blue sky. It was as if someone blew a whistle, signaling a train to shift gears. With the sound and sights of our hoisting sails, we moved out of the equatorial bathrooms and entered into the southern trade wind. The site of Orion was long gone, but now we had a sudden cross. So it was a lot of exciting points through the gargoyles. A lot of times people say, oh, it must be very peaceful and very nice. It's really hard, number one. Number two, I find that being in the ocean is never really quiet. It's usually something, the raiders or slabs or a side of the water, a side of the hull, or something falls off, or something always happens. And then the movement is so erotic, especially in a place like a dart room. And so we sailed, like I mentioned, like we crossed the equator four times. That means that we went to the south, and then we came back. We did all the Palomadian Island in the Pacific area. And then from Samoa, we went back to Hawaii. And so we crossed the equator. And then second trip, which was our last trip, was in 1984, February. And we left Hawaii. And at the time, we went all the way to New Zealand, Australia. And then we went to Mediterranean. And then we went up to Thailand, Bali. And so that's why we made two different trips. That's what I mentioned, four times crossing the equator. And we were really used to sailing in a trade man area. So by time when we start going to the Indian Ocean, their wind pattern is different. And also especially when we went through the Red Sea. And I think we spent a little too much time in Thailand because we had an engine problem. And it was really nice hanging out in Thailand. But we spent too much time waiting for the engine part that was coming from. I don't know where it was coming from. It's the end of our Japanese engine. So I don't know if it came from Japan or it was coming from Bangkok. But so it took really long time to get the engine part. We finally got the engine part. And we put it together. And we drove out. And it blew up. So we came back. I don't think we even went out 20 miles. I don't remember. And then we sat there another four longer time that we need to. So when we left Thailand, went to Sri Lanka and Oman, the tip of the south of the Arabian peninsula. And then went to Yemen. And from there, Yemen, we went up to the Red Sea. And then by then, already we were against the prevailing wind. Because this Red Sea weather pattern is determined by the two big weather systems. One is in the south of the Indian Ocean. The other one is on the North Mediterranean Sea. So we were sailing against the elements by then. It was a little too late. So it was extremely beautiful, that Red Sea. But you can also see these flames from the oil drain rigs. You can see a few of them from the distance. But you can see them really clearly. And then one side, and then the other side is we will be sailing really close to Saudi Arabia. So it's like a beautiful desert. It's just extremely beautiful desert. And we're so between Saudi Arabia and the African continent. And when we're sailing against the elements, it just becomes like the waves. Like when you're going to big oceans, Pacific. And they're coming from long ways and very powerful. But this in the Red Sea, they don't have very much area. So the ocean is really choppy. And it's like we hold time. It's like hobby horsing all the way. And then we are catching incredible number of fish. When we go sailing in a big ocean, like in the Pacific, we go in the stretch of the area. Or it's just like it would be 200 fish. We catch 200 fish almost as much as we want. So sometimes Steve throws the, we tell them, we don't want fish today. We don't want fish today. And then he said one day he was saying, you know, I can see fish right there. There's all these birds flying in. I can catch fish right now. I said, OK, just a small ton of fish. And here he comes, the big ton of fish. So then we go to the area. And then we get like four days, we'll get like mahi mahi. And but in Red Sea, amazingly, you get different kind of fish almost every day. And they're really beautiful. I think they still have the really shallow reefs. And so it's a very interesting place. And then it's also Red Sea. The water is very salty, because that's really concentrated. And there's very small water, kind of, etc., like small in the north and south. And so our deck, because the water is so choppy. And we are going against the wind. So like hot, kind of, having up and down. And then so we get a lot of spray on deck. And it was like our deck was almost becoming like a beach, because it was really salty. Because it was really a lot of salt. And so that was our adventure, some sailing in Red Sea. I'd like to open the floor, so a question if you'd like to talk about it. Also, I keep people interested that my boys were home schooled. And let me see. Stepaki, the older one, I think went to school maybe three years. And then by the time when he went to Mediterranean Sea in 1986, he was 16. And we already arranged that he would be accepted into Rhode Island, Lyceum, outside of Leiden. So it would be outside of Den Hard in Netherlands. So when you reached the Mediterranean, there was May, it was May, almost the end of May. And then August, we took a train from France to Netherlands to take our kids to school. So he finished the Leiden High School, they called it a baccalaureate program. And then he went to school one year in Hawaii. So it was three years altogether in school. And he went to Amherst College after that. And then my younger one was, he was in Netherlands for two years in school. And then he went to Caribbean to spend time with Steve in two years. And then he went to New England in his teaching environments. And so I think you can do a lot of things when kids are home schooled or living on a boat. And all that is at home. So I'm writing about home on strange shores. So that's my other project. So here's Steve's here. He's the one who built the boat. And I guess a lot of people know him with his boat, the one that he had in Leic Champlain. But he built this big caravan of medical medical in Hawaii. And so if you have any questions, I'd like to leave the room. Yes. Just curious, were the children born on the boat? They were born in Hawaii, but, you know, so they were born. You didn't deliver them on the boat? They were born on the boat? Yeah, I mean, they were born in a hospital. I was just trying to imagine being on, as you said, Hobby or a sea, delivering this child and wondering, well, that's just another thing that you were doing. So I was curious how that worked. But they were born in Hawaii? Yeah. You just have a plan to do it? My honor, that's living in Waterbury right now. Very, very right now. But he was actually very good, and he wouldn't get seasick. So whenever water gets really rough, and I need to get some kind of beans or something, and I would all send them out, send them to get, you know, go to that under the bunk, and I need this and that. And then, you know, he doesn't mind. He's kind of like, are you all right? Because, yeah, so he takes things out. And then, of course, he finds out all of those in my secret stash of cookies. When you were in Hawaii, was Melaka your home? You lived on the boat while you were in Hawaii? Pardon me? Did you live on the boat while you were in Hawaii? Yes, we lived in, let me see. We, before Melaka, we had another small little kind of whale boat, and then kind of turned it into a place, little place we can live. And there was only, I think, two years. I lived on, no, maybe three years on land, in an apartment. And the rest of the time, so we were all on the boat. So I was in Hawaii from 1970 to 1984. Did you study the different types of sea, the different types of fish, wherever you were, or how did you know that when you saw the sharks, not to swim with them, because at some places, that's OK. Some places, maybe not OK. So how did you know what to expect, where you were, if it was OK to jump in or so far or not? I think, for example, the shark story that we have is like, I think in the middle of the ocean like that, I think sharks, you know, they would be probably looking for something to eat. I think the safe shark is what, hammerhead shark, stuff like that. Those are relatively small ones. And they live mostly on the close to reef, shadow wise. And so I don't really know all the details, but it's sort of rough guess of these kind of things. I mean, I wouldn't venture into doing that. And then, so like, I think for Steve, it was like a big adventure swimming in the middle of the ocean. And but I would be afraid. You think like, what if it kind of sails away? Or what if the current is so strong, you know? And even though you don't, I don't see it, then maybe I kind of can't come in, but yeah. Did you have bad weather or did you have any storms that you had to survive? Oh yeah, OK. So I didn't talk anything about the bad weather. I think the bad weather, we were really careful. And we planned, I mean, there's a big chart of looking at all those weather patterns. And so I think there's one trip we made from New Zealand to Australia, the Tasman Sea. And we, I think again, we were kind of late. Because the boys wanted to go skiing. And June 21st, the June 20th, manhood opens their ski. And that was like a big thing, because a lot of US skiers, they fled down there. They said like, without manhood in New Zealand, there wouldn't be a skier, because that's their winter. So it's the first day of the summer, their winter, they opened. So we thought, well, we have to go. It's like we have to go. So of course, we got to spend a little too much time in New Zealand. And so we left the, and I talk about this one in the Tasman Sea, Galea. And so I think I wrote down how many days. We were there several days in that sea. And it kind of feels slow, slow. And it's like when you're going, it's like calm before the storm. And just exactly that's what happened. It's like, well, I couldn't get out of the cabin. And then you know, the cloud is right on top of you. It's like so, that makes it so cold. And I think it was, I wrote about it. And I was going to my watch and sit down. And then I cannot see anything except my red compass. Compass that's red. And you kind of watch there. And then, so sit down. And then you kind of, the wind takes you to the top of the wave. And you can feel it. You can feel it. It's like wind blowing. And you're on the top. There's like, magically, there's like a pause. And then you're almost like, now it's going to go. And then we just ride on the side of the wave. And then when you go down, and I don't know, it's 20 feet. I don't know. It's just incredibly big waves. And then you go down. And then when you follow me, it goes like, we hit the wave, just like this. And then you kind of almost like hitting the stone. It's like, oh. And then we do that again. And then we do that again. I don't know how many nights. And then, well, we couldn't go make it to Australia from there. So we end up sailing back to, back to, we left New Caledonia. We sailed from New Caledonia to New Zealand. And then we were trying to go from New Zealand to Australia. And so we couldn't really make the crossing. And so we sailed back to New Caledonia. And from there, we sailed down to Australia. Do your sons both sail? Yeah. Actually, my son, the older one, Stibaki, is somewhere, I think, he, somewhere, it's just things are getting really, weather was kind of rough. And I always kept getting sick, seasick. And so I told him, I said, Stibaki, do you want to, do you want to do navigation? You know, you take a sun shot and you calculate. And he was saying, oh, of course he liked it. He just asked, like, sure, OK. So I made a little cheat sheet for myself. So I showed him what it is. And man, he learned so quick. And then it goes up. So yeah, he navigated from, I think, half of the weather. He was, this second trip was, he was 14 when we left. So I think probably when he was 15, he was navigating. And I didn't have to do it. It's just like, you go ahead and do it. So were you asking if they still sail? Yeah, I was hearing about that. My son, my older son died. And the younger one doesn't sail very much. But he's done sail very much. But he kind of made his own little kayak. And so he has a lot of interest. But doesn't particularly go sailing. He's the one that teaches at Dartmouth, you said? He's told a lot. Yeah. What happened to your older son, if I might ask? He killed himself. Oh, I'm sorry. How many years were they homeschooled and did it? Were they ahead or behind other kids their age or they went back to organized schools? Well, I think Anno, a younger one, was, he was two years ahead, I think. He didn't know, when I took, when we took them to Europe, I talked to the, I think there was an English school. And he was in the English school for one year. And then he went to Dutch school later on. And because of the, he wasn't proficient in Dutch yet. My older son was already there. The Baccalaureate program was in English. So he didn't have to change. So he, so I actually didn't, I myself didn't know what the procedure was for him to be accepted into school and what the level of, I think they said they're going to accept him. And then they want to find, I guess they want to find out what grade he was in. And because we told him, I mean, he was homeschooled. So my son comes out and I said, I told him, are you going to have a meeting? I told him. And then he comes out and I said, how did he go? He says like, oh man, I don't know. And I said, what do you mean? And then the person conducted the exam and says, oh he did very well. And then I said, he said he did very well. And he says, I don't know how, because I just, it's like I had to stop because I had no idea what I'm doing. And then I think there was a replacement test. So they just give you this long test until he cannot handle it. Then they know where to place him. So he was two years ahead. What, when you were fishing, what type of equipment did you have for fishing? And what was the largest that you caught? So I think lure. It's called a lure with different kind of skirts and sometimes it's like a spoon and those kind of things. And some, I think we even caught sharks sometimes. And then I have pictures of fish like some are like almost up to here, about five feet. Can you talk a little bit about what the boys did in a day? Did you have planned lessons that you gave them or did they just simply learn by doing and fishing? And did you have a million books down there that happened? Did they just pick that one and he got to port? Well, there was a, yeah, we had a lot of books. And I really believe in that reading is the most important thing. And I always say, all the problems you read, even the mathematical problems, you read carefully. Answer is right there. They will tell you what they want. So they were very keen in reading. And both of them are very, very good readers. And so I don't have to worry about it because they were really good readers. They became really good readers. Number one, we didn't have TV. And so we all come sit around the red when it rained. Of course in Hawaii, it doesn't rain that much. But then statistically, in Hawaii, they say 300 days, sunny days, and 60 days, rainy days. But I don't remember raining for 60 days in Hawaii. Every day also say cloudy days and rainy days. So he did a lot. I had a regiment every day from 8 to noon we are studying. So we have this regular progression of the science, either science or math. And so we continuously are doing them every day for 8 to noon. So they often in the harbor, they also kind of other yachties with the kids. And so I think most people, at least the ones that we know, have a similar schedule. So all the kids know, no, we cannot go there until noon. So everybody doing something. I don't know if they do the same, but for us anyway, you cannot come here until noon. After that, you can come into whatever you want to do. So that was kind of our own regiment. And so Steve had a lot of interest in it. Because his background is philosophy. So a lot of those interesting books. So the kids liked to, they were exposed and they liked to read. And on the board, we don't have anything. So they would make their own little drama. And they played music, piano, and guitar. Which languages do they speak? English. Just English. Was that problem in the different port style? Not really. That really makes the English speakers kind of lazy. If I'm Korean, then I have to learn something more universal. But English pretty much gets you around. And then a second question I had is, did you have a refrigeration and a water maker all modern? No water maker. Refrigerator, we had a few times. It was like a propane refrigerator. And I think it probably broke down. So we didn't have refrigerators not too long. So when you caught fish, you had to either eat it or give it away. Well, when we were in the harbor, and it was kind of nice because we just throw the gear net, then we catch a lot of fish. And then we kind of give it to people in the village. They really like to give fish. And when we are in the ocean, we kind of look and dry them. So we lay them, and then you can kind of marinate them and put it in the sun because there's no flies or bugs. You can kind of put it out there. And you can make a turkey. But if it's in oil, we kind of cook it, and then we kind of eat it. What's your favorite subject if you could study or reflecting on whether it be science or math or astronomy? Or do you have a particular place that you really enjoy literature or reading about or experiencing? Yeah, actually, I like astronomy. Astronomy. Did all your navigation charts, were they in English? Yeah. Well, it's called a hydrographic office publication. So they publish everything. And I mean, everything looks like a text table. Here's a pretty big thing like this, and you open it. And then with it in papers, and then kind of, I don't know, hundreds and thousands of pages. And they are all like this, thick and with a hard bound, and big things. And they have everything. It's just very interesting to read. Because if you're going to go in a certain place, and we usually kind of get the tour guide thing, and try to eat it available, and read. And then when you go into this hydrographic office publication, they tell you everything like they say about the historical weather pattern and the current what happened, and wind patterns. But then you're just sometimes, I don't think, our brain is able to kind of process everything to make sense out of it. But it's all there, unbelievable. How did you plan for medical issues, or were you worried that maybe there was something you didn't have with you, or was thinking like first thing, a kid or something like fishing, if you get hurt? Yeah, I think now I'm older. I might be thinking about those guys. I was young and dumb, and we were all pretty healthy. So we had necessary precautions, and then necessary first aid stuff. But in the ocean, your captain, those kind of things, and here pretty well, because it's salty. It doesn't affect quite as much, I don't think. So I don't think we had any kind of problems. Did you originally decide you would circumnavigate the globe and then decide against the Atlantic Ocean at some point? Did you have an ambition to go all the way around it? Well, I think it's usually it was his. But anyway, it did make sense. The reason why I agreed to do this was my kids would be OK. And there are things that he wants to do, so I will do it. And then when all the kids are 16, we want to take them back, take them to Europe, because that's where we met. And so they will finish the school. And then things will work out. At that time, it kind of looked like it's going to work. And I didn't have the circumnavigation as a part of the big goal of life. And I kind of feel like that was sort of like a lifestyle. But I mean, did you have setbacks? The voyages that you took down to the Tasman Sea, your temple, and the Bora Bora, did you plan it all out? Or did you sort of play it by ear as you went along? Well, when we went on a trip, we planned. And then we said we kind of knew the boat. And it's 2,000 miles. It's going to take about 20 days. And then it took 21 days for us to go there. And so it was a, and then after that, when we originally, when we left Hawaii to go to Bora Bora, and then we were going to come back, there was also the time when they were doing other boats, boats called that boat. I'm sorry. The one that they had an experimental from Hawaii to Bora Bora. You mean the Hokulea? Yeah, Hokulea. They built the Hokulea to prove the navigation, Polynesian navigation. And so they sailed with the Polynesian type of Hokulea, was built with the modern material. But then both the design and everything was the original. It was like Kantiki, the higher. Yeah, except that this Hokulea is a lot more sophisticated and Kantiki was almost like a raft, more like a raft. So they were doing that around the same time. We were, no, I think we left before Hokulea did. And then when we came back, that's when the Hokulea was coming back or something like that. So we were going to do that. We're going to go to Bora Bora and come back just to see how we do out in the ocean. And so instead of coming back directly from Bora Bora to Hawaii, we went further to West and the Cook Islands. And then we sort of made a triangle of the Polynesian islands and all the way to Samoa. And Samoa is further, quite a bit of West. So the further west you go, the harder to come back. You've got to be against the Northeast trade. And so that trip took almost a year. So that was actually when we went to, from Bora Bora we went to Tahiti, Papaiti. And then we, instead of coming back, said, oh, we made a little bit of money. We did a chartering. There's American doctors having a convention. So they came on our boat and we took them out sailing. So we made money, we did it for a week. And so we had enough money so we sailed all the way to Samoa and then we came back. So it was sort of impromptu, but then there was a kind of plan. But then mostly we planned ahead. Do you ever run into other ships sailing? Like other people were running into? That's crashing, it's like, hey, there's another ship over there. Yeah, we said a few, not the people that, I think the small boat, a few of them. So we call them on the radio sometimes. And one time I think we are outside of a Bali. And it was really kind of almost like a dirty room. So we were afraid maybe we might get a pirate coming. That's the area, there's a pirate. So we were really using our engine a lot. And then we were running out of fuel. So there was a big ship was passing. So we radioed them. We need a fuel and let us, the address will send you a check. And if you drop some fuel, there was no problem. So he feared about half of the tank thing. And then they dropped it in the water. And so it was quite a chore to retrieve that into the dinghy. We had to lower our dinghy, and then you have to go and then retrieve it onto the boat so you can sail it on. So we can use fuel. But then yeah, so we met a ship like that. And then if you go to, in the Pacific, we didn't see that many boats or one or two. And but when you go to the like Malaysia, that area, that's one of the busiest sailing routes. Because all those ships going back and forth, all those things from China to where they were, from all those stuff from Korea or Singapore. So that's just a really busy area. So you see the ship all over the place. Were all of your destination ports busier destinations in like larger countries? Or did you go to sort of more remote places as well? Yeah, we really spent, we had a lot of remote places. But you know, we always end up going to, we had to check in first. So in a specific lot of places, like Fiji, for example, it's, you know, the Suva, the main harbor is really big and they have everything. But it's still, you just go next time and it will be remote. And actually in Fiji was when my son was windsurfing on the surf and he was catching fish. When he was windsurfing, he threw the lure out. And then he caught fish and he put it in the backpack. And then he came back with a number of fish and then we're saying, and then fish was bent because in the backpack. And then he's so happy that he, that the sister, I'm going to go to this, I called the Club by Tasi, that's where we kind of anchored off. And so he said, I'm going to go sell my fish there. So he did, he made the money. I think I remember it was eight New Zealand dollars. And he was so happy, I think we got a picture of him holding the eight dollars. Can you describe your boat? Is it two, was it two punches and a cabin? Yeah, so we had a bridge, it's a really big boat. It's like a 48 footer deck. And how high or how close to the water were you? Well, it's maybe four feet from the water line to the cabin, to the deck of the hull. And then so there's another cabin inside between the bridge. So the cabin, the boat is a 48 footer and deck. And then it's a 16 feet wide, no, 24 feet wide. 22. 22? 22, OK, so. And then we got inside the cabin, it's actually 16 by 16 on the bridge. And so that was divided into four, so four 8 by 8 sections. So first thing when you come in, that's galley. And then a master's cabin, and then we had a dining area. And then we had a lounge. And then boys had their bunks in the hull. So you chose that design because of its, you could sleep so many people and it was very stable? I mean, catamaraners, they almost never tip over, right? We can. Actually, catamaraners will tip over. But this is how it gets really people. I mean, we're talking about the catamaran that's tipping over will be like hobby cat and small ones. Because they are really going, an optimum, they can go as fast as they can. So they're really, half of the hull is hanging out there in the air. So I think it was a, the choice was sort of like a maze, because Steve met the designer. And he was building. And we were right on the, we sent, we rented a lot together. So we were right next to him. So. Can you talk about the title of the book? What it shows there? It's a Ring of Fire. So that's actually a geographical name. Those are the islands all around the rim of a Pacific ocean. So I think, what is it? Johnny Cash had a, I didn't really know if he had a song about the Ring of Fire. So mine is more like, because we lived so much time and sailed a lot of it in Ring of Fire. In the Pacific, Hawaii, and all those islands we sailed, those are all part of the Ring of Fire. What's it like now that the book is done? How does it feel to have this book done? I don't know, there's, I think when you write, you're kind of something like this, there's always somebody who complains. You know, in the family, or you know. But overall, I think the reception has been great. And. What was the difficult part of writing it? Maybe there wasn't one, but was there a place? Yeah, my son's death. I didn't go in too much of details, but that was very hard. And, you know, other things in the course of it. Well, I think the real difficulty was also trying to get the things straight. And so in that way, it was helpful. And Steve kept good ships wrong. So when I was writing, I didn't want to take his ships all the way. So I told him, why don't you just send me the time that we arrived, where we went, what time. I kind of knew most of it. But then when I started writing, it seemed like, oh, no, I've got the date mixed up here. And so instead, he said he took a copy of all the pages and he sent it to me. So that was helpful. How did you end up in Vermont? Because you took the Vermont. I mean, how did you end up in Vermont? OK, my son was accepted to Amherst College. And I was talking to a friend of mine. I met on the boat. And she's in Hawaii a long time ago. And she lived in Platsburg. So I told her, I'm going to move to somewhere close to our development school. And she says, why don't you go to Vermont? She's right across the Champlain Lake. So the Lake Champlain. So I said, OK, so that's why I came to Vermont. I'm glad I did. First, I want to say thank you for taking so much time with all these questions. So thank you for that. I'm curious, did either or both of you grow up sailing or have an interest in sailing? Because I'm curious, it's not a decision that most people come to and say, we're going to build a huge camera and get the ocean. Have kids. So how did that life-changing decision happen? No, I think it's mostly from him, really. So it's going to ask the company. I think I would remember him saying once. Yeah, and I think I was outdoors when we called it. He was a deterioration to move from Lincoln, the Brassel Ranch, to ideally, Florida. And anyway, it took me a while as I'm not even outdoors. So I got the outdoors bug and travel with my father. And you didn't even mention this in the book, but I think it's worth mentioning to give you special credit that when we were sailing in the South of Sydney, whenever we would import mostly, see a Korean fishing boat, we want their food. So and they're going to our company as a family. The pre-intentional one, that was part of the state Korean government's way of dealing with context. But if you had a record, you could choose to go fishing instead of prison. And getting a record in those days was easy. So my point is these were really educated people and not our typical criminal. And what we learned from them is that the last thing in the world, a proper Korean woman would do is go on a boat and pretend that you're just going to sail. And I don't know if Yena and her age ever was aware of that. But we were made aware of it by Koreans that only little life is this. Anyway, that was taking my hand off the Yena that she didn't care about what people thought. When you grew up in Japan, I spent a year in Japan. My mom was born in Japan. Did you spend some time in Japan yourself? No. I was wondering, I spent a year as a teenager in Kyoto and I found that Koreans were discriminated against. Very much so by the Japanese. There was a Korean school near us. And the Koreans were not allowed to associate with the Japanese kids at all. I think that's the way I understand. But since I haven't been there, I don't know the things, how it is working. But then, very much so, as far as I know, she can be very old because I lived in Korea almost 50 years ago. Until then, in some places, that's still true, that Koreans never become Japanese, even if they can be third generation. They still treat them that way? Well, yeah, they don't say so. And it's not really on the radar of our local news consumption. But it is very much so, yeah, as far as I know. So there's a, I think actually in Vermont, there was a troupe, they were doing dancing and they called it about something, three, something. So there was about forgiveness of something. And then there was about Japan and China and Korea. There's all those dance and they were all trying to make peace. So instead of somebody, we went in there and said, guess who needs to apologize here? So I think what I'd like to do is actually introduce Steve Law. You know, I mentioned him as Steve before. But Steve was here about failure. Nana, you live with your husband Fred in Annhurst, no? Yeah, and close to Greenfield. So thank you both, Fred and Steve, for being here and supporting Nana in tonight's presentation. And we have some refreshments and books if you want to. And thank you, Nana. This is quite a story for the channel.