 Think Tech Hawaii. Civil engagement lives here. Aloha. My name is Mark Shklav, and I am the host of Think Tech Hawaii's Law Across the Sea program. Today, my guest is John Himmelman. John and his wife, Leilani, both fit into the successful professional lifestyles of Hawaii. John practiced law in Hawaii from 1977 to 1994, 17 years. Then, on Easter Sunday, April 3rd, 1994, John and Leilani set sail for a life on the sea, leaving Hawaii and John's law practice behind forever. They sailed out of Kanoe Bay, turned south, and never looked back. John Leilani now live in Auckland, New Zealand. Now, some questions may come to your mind. Why did John leave the legal profession for the uncertainty of the open seas? Why trade the law profession, the security of the law profession for life across the sea? John will talk to us about his sailing yacht, and from his sailing lot, Yacht Amazing Grace in Auckland, where he and Leilani are now preparing for their next sailing adventure around the South Pacific. John, welcome. Aloha. Well, good morning, as I say down here today, and thank you for having me, Mark. Good day. Good day. Good to see you, old friend. I want to get into why you left the law, but first, why did you get into the law in the first place? What motivated you? Did you want to always be a lawyer? What did you do in the law? Well, no, I didn't always want to be a lawyer. My reasons are certainly not altruistic. They were more mercenary. I wanted to have a profession that might give me a pretty comfortable lifestyle economically. Also, I came out of the era in the late 60s, early 70s, a lot of radicalism, if you will, and becoming a lawyer was attractive from the standpoint of maybe helping the downtrodden, if you will. That was pretty much it. Well, there's two good reasons to become a lawyer, help people and make a living. So you did that. You came to Hawaii. How did you wind up here in Hawaii to start your career? Well, I was returning from the sunny Southeast Asia excursion in 1967, well, actually 1969. And my father, who was a career military officer, was stationed in Hawaii. I'd never been there before. So when I came back from Thailand and Vietnam, I decided to come to Hawaii and finish university, which I did. And then after that, I went to law school in Southern California. And then we turned back to Hawaii because I did fall in love with it while I was doing undergraduate work at the University of Hawaii and began practicing law there. And in fact, what you didn't mention to your audience was you and I were partners in several years early on in our practice. Right. Well, yeah. And I hope that wasn't what turned you off about the law, but tell me what type of law you practiced while you were practicing law. What type of things were you doing? Well, I started off doing some criminal defense work when you and I were with Shirley and Jordan. And then I sort of spread from that to doing general civil litigation of personal injury actions, divorce work, some contract laws. So it was a fairly diverse law practice, if you will. And it was quite a few years. You were practicing law here. And then somehow you got into sailing. How did that happen? What was your introduction to sailing? Well, we always look for some sort of a sporting event or a diversion from law. I'm not a golfer. I did get into boating. I'd always sort of liked boating, but never had owned a boat. And being in Hawaii, of course, surrounded by water was sort of natural. So we started off with power boats. And as every boat owner will tell you, when you buy your first boat, you come down with the incurable disease of big gaius, which means that you always wanted to do both. And we started to move up in size. And then I decided that motoring around in a power boat, burning all that fossil fuel was not environmentally good. So I came up with this bright idea of getting a sailboat. And so we bought a sailboat and joined Kanye Yacht Club. And it was all upfield from there. Well, okay. So you had a law career. You're joining the yacht club. And you have your yacht out there. And something happened. Something happened. And you said, well, this is different. And now I don't feel the same way. Or what happened that motivated you to change and move on to the yacht as your life? Practicing law became just a chore. I didn't like it. It became more burdensome psychologically. And I decided over a period of time, I thought, my goodness, there's got to be something better to do with your life in practice law. As we were members of Kanye Yacht Club, we started meeting people who had done long distance blue water sailing. And of course, it's a bit romantic when you start hearing these stories. And it caught my attention. And all of a sudden I said, look, it's time to really start thinking about being something else. And by this time, the idea of doing long distance blue water sailing was very, very attractive. And it just sort of evolved into that. Had you ever done it before? Had you ever been? No, no. We were doing a lot of sailing around the Hawaiian islands. I've since learned having sailed in the many other parts of the world that sailing in Hawaii really is actually terrible. Aside from the warm weather and the warm water, there are no anchors of any significance in Hawaii. The boating facilities, the marinas in life leave a lot to be desired. So, of course, at that time I didn't know that. But I was still starting to work up to the leading of the law. And it finally came to a head. I just said, I'm going to do something else. I've got to leave. And I decided we're going to leave and sail off into the sunset. Well, okay. Now, we'll get into the decision making in a minute. But was there anything that tipped the scale? Was there anything that said that's it? I recall I was preparing for a trial, a jury trial. And we were in the judges chambers going over jury instructions. And I started having hot and cold flashes and feeling faint. And literally, I passed out. And I went, of course, the judge kindly adjourned the trial. But I went to the doctors and they said, physically, I was okay. They described it or decided that I had a panic attack. And they were probably right. And I came home after that. And I said, if this is what practicing law is doing, I've got to get out of it. And I would say that that probably was at 15 points. Okay. All right. And so, we've all encountered stress as lawyers. That's kind of the name of the game. And so that makes a lot of sense, what you just said. Okay. So you had to make that decision. You made it internally yourself. And how did you address everybody else? How did you convince everybody else, especially your wife, Leilani, that's what you'd like to go. That's where you'd like to see the rest of your life. Well, up to that point, I was starting a dialogue with Leilani, sort of an ongoing one. Oh, gee, wouldn't it be exciting to go sailing? Wouldn't it be exciting to do something else with our life? And of course, you looked at me usually with a very jobless eye and said, are you an idiot? You know, I'm perfectly happy doing what I'm doing. But then that episode with the panic attack and the visit to the doctors and so on and so forth, I think convinced her that maybe by continued practice law was not a physically and emotionally good thing to do. You might have heard of a law going by me as opposed to leaving the marina, so I'll have to apologize about that. You're on your yacht right now talking to us in Auckland, right? I'm in the yacht. We've moved aboard about a week ago. We're waiting for a weather window to sail off up to Fuji. Okay. So you and Leilani realize that the value of all of the monetary rewards and social acceptance from being law may not make life any better. And you look for some other opportunity and you decided to take off. And so what did you do? All of our worldly possessions. I informed my then law partner, Albert Smith, that I decided to do this. And of course, there were some raised eyebrows. I just said it's time for me to do something else. And it was really that simple. It was that blunt. And we sold everything, had a big farewell party at the yacht club, and sailed off. But it was interesting. The friends and family and colleagues sort of broke down into two distinct schools in their reaction to what we were doing. My mother and Leilani's mother particularly felt that we were basically going to sail off and die at sea and nobody would ever see us again. So that was represented one side. Many others said, oh, gee, I'm really, really jealous of you. I wish I had the courage to simply sell up and change everything and sail off just like you do, but I don't have that courage. And so I'm going to continue with my mundane life. And that's really sort of where it all came down. Okay. And so we have a minute before our break. Tell us where you went on this first first trip. The first destination was a thousand miles to south at Palmyra Island, then owned by the ironically named Robinson family from Kauai. And so you left the harbor here at Canioli and you just started sailing. You'd never done this before, just you and Leilani? Well, now we've done a practice ocean crossing in two years before. I took my yacht up to San Francisco for a regatta and sailed up from San Francisco back to Canioli, but we had a full crew of six on board at that. This last trip, I mean, sorry, the first trip that you took then and on your retirement from law, you and Leilani were alone on the ship. Is that right? Absolutely. Yeah. Okay. Well, we're going to take a short break right now and we'll be right back. And I want to find out what happened since and where you're going after. Hi, I'm Ethan Allen, your host on Pacific Partnerships in Education here on Think Tech, Hawaii. Every other week, Tuesdays at 3pm, we have guests on and talk about the fascinating, interesting and unique partnerships in education that occur across the Pacific Islands with Hawaii, Micronesia, the Marshall Islands, Palau, Guam, all these places have really rich local education programs going on and the exchange among and between these programs is a wealth of great information helping the islands all learn how to survive and thrive in our ever-changing world. I hope you'll join us on Pacific Partnerships in Education. Hello, I'm Yukari Kunisue. I'm your host of New Japanese Language Show on Think Tech, Hawaii called Konnichiwa, Hawaii, broadcasting live every other Monday at 2pm. Please join us where we discuss important and useful information for the Japanese language community in Hawaii. The show will be all in Japanese. Hope you can join us every other Monday at 2pm. Aloha. We are back with my old friend and former law partner, John Himelman. He is on his yacht in Auckland, New Zealand talking to us about leaving the law and going on his boat around the world and I guess around South Pacific mostly. Your first trip, Palmyra, is that correct, John? That's correct. That was our first protocol. That was a rather interesting trip. We had enjoyed a 16-day passage from San Francisco two years earlier with a full crew of six people and it was a delightful sail and we were sort of expecting the same thing going to Palmyra. About two days out we hit a pretty horrendous storm and both of us were seasick and wet and uncomfortable and it actually was discussed to possibly turn around but we decided well why don't we wait till we get to Palmyra and see what happens. I did mention to Leilani that maybe I made a mistake. But we've got to Palmyra and Palmyra was everything that you would have dreamt a South Pacific Aptal once. It was idyllic, beautiful, very hot, very humid but it was almost like a release style being opened up in terms of our apprehension of continuing on and from that point on we just had a wonderful experience in sailing. So that first trip was sort of a test in a way. Somebody was testing you. Yeah, they were testing us and fortunately we passed. Otherwise we wouldn't be doing this interview right now. I'd be back pulling my hair out. We're looking at doing law practice and so on. So you didn't look back after you told Leilani this might have been a mistake. I can imagine what that discussion was like and then things seemed to work better and since then what have you been doing with respect to sailing and your life on the sea? After Palmyra we spent the next essentially two years sailing around the South Pacific. When you're sailing into the South Pacific you do it in terms of seasons based upon the hurricanes. So the sailing season in the South Pacific is during the North Pacific's summer time and the South Pacific's winter time which is the out of season hurricanes and then you do that for six months at a time and then you go down to New Zealand and that's how we got to New Zealand was to get out of the South Pacific hurricane season. When I got to New Zealand, much to my surprise, I found out that I could actually qualify for residency. They had a point system of which you got points for your educational background and years practicing within that profession and so on and so forth. And I qualified and then we went ahead and spent another six months up from the islands, Fiji, Tonga, Vanuatu, New Teledonia sailing around and then we finally came back. I think it was in 1997. We came back to Auckland and settled down and after three years we qualified for citizenship so I now hold two passports and then we worked for about we did land work for about the next four or five years and then we discovered that I could qualify for a commercial skipper's license to run luxury yachts which was absolutely fantastic and Leilani took courses to become a chef. So from 2002 approximately to 2008 we ran luxury yachts and charter yachts in the Caribbean, the Mediterranean, South Pacific all the way out to Australia and that was just a wonderful, wonderful lifestyle and we got paid for it very well. And you kept Auckland as your home base during that period of time? Yes, in fact we actually owned a house since we first moved to Auckland and we were renting it out during the time that we were overseas for six years working on the boats and we now just put the house back up to for rent because as I said we're waiting for a weather window which looks to be about two days from now and we're going to be waiting for 18 months sale this time but we're not being paid this this time it's not our own boat. Okay well okay now here's here's the tough question now did you ever want to come back to law after getting on the getting on your boat and sailing towards the sunset did the thought ever come to you well maybe I maybe I should just become a lawyer go back to being a lawyer again. Let me put it this way a bad day at sea is much better to get the best day in the arts so that that was the long answer the simple answer is absolutely not I never want to be a lawyer again. Okay all right now and but the law helped you get where you are too in certain ways right I mean had you not had the you know the resources or the ingenuity or the knowledge of a lawyer maybe this other lifestyle wouldn't have been open to you. Well I will admit that there were certain there are certain aspects of what we've done since we've left Hawaii that my legal background has had some benefit these include getting a job at the two international insurance companies here in Auckland before we went to the professional sailing they hired me because not solely because I have a legal background but it was a major influence the other thing that was sort of interesting is that the first yacht that we worked on and ran was owned by an American first American fellow and his wife and he had a law degree and age wise we were fairly contemporary he was slightly older but the fact that both of us had legal backgrounds he never practiced law which was why he was able to afford a multi-million dollar yacht and I wasn't probably explained that but you know all kidding aside he was able you know he and I had a lot of points of commonality in our discussions and backgrounds and going to undergraduate and law school and so forth so that was sort of interesting I'm not sure that got me the job but it was certainly interesting to talk about. Okay well there's always contacts I find doing this program there's lots of contacts that you never know come up and they somehow bring people and experiences together now you're planning a trip right now briefly where where will you be going on your trip and while you're talking I hope we can put up a couple photos of your yacht also. Okay as I mentioned we're looking for the weather window hopefully in the next couple of days it'll open up and we will head to Fiji we're going back to a very remote island we spent some time at last year called Falanga and we're planning on spending about six months in Fiji and then instead of coming back to New Zealand which is what we did last year in October November for the for the start of the hurricane season we're going to work our way up to the north Pacific visiting islands such as Wallace which is a French possession, Tuvalu, Kiribati which is the location of the famous World War II battle island of Tarawa and then into the Marshall Islands where we'll spend the south Pacific hurricane season and then in April-May of next year we'll work our way back down through those same island chains into Fiji and probably Vanuatu this time and then back to New Zealand in November of 2019. Okay yeah while you were talking we're showing some fantastic shots of your yacht one in this beautiful lagoon. That lagoon is Falanga and we're going to go back there. When you when you look at a photograph like that or a place like that that is what cruising is all about it's not the passages for which neither Leilani or I really enjoy but it's getting to destinations like Falanga and getting to know and become friends with islanders who have are pretty remote from what we call civilization but they do have internet satellite internet and Leilani has become Facebook friends with about half the village there the village has about it. I understand you're helping them also you're bringing some things for them is that right? Yeah this year we're bringing about 600 sunglasses about 700 reading glasses and the one thing that most people will find a bit surprising when we were there last year Leilani asked the ladies what would you like and of all things they said they wanted bras so we got a hold of this charitable organization here in Auckland called Uplift a very ironic name and they gave us about a thousand bras that we're taking and we're going to have a massive Black Thursday giveaway sale on Falanga and that's and that's a good that's sort of a good work a pro bono if I if if I may yeah yeah I mean you know these people Falanga has serviced by a tramp steamer once a month from Suva and so it shows you how remote these these the islands still are in today's day and age so for them to get any kind of goods down to Falanga is a bit of an effort and so when we yachties and it's not just me but other yachties do the same thing we bring things in I have fishing gear like hooks and lines and sinkers I have a couple of fishing poles that I don't use anymore I'm going to get away I've got a spear gun we brought for the kids the school the school has 50 kids from grades one through I think seven and so I brought a rugby ball and a soccer ball those kinds of things okay now we have about a minute left I'd like you to tell me what have you learned from all of this in that minute share with everybody young and old lawyers what your thoughts are and maybe we can also close off with a photo of you you and Leilani in your cabin hopefully well well first of all you you need to follow your dream if you sit around and plan and plan and plan you will never leave stock so finish the planning or stop the planning and just do it and that's the biggest thing that we've learned is that you need to simply do what it's going to make you happy and if you do that even if you're working and you love what you do that's that's great but you don't and you want to do something else don't just try to actually do it otherwise you'll never ever accomplish anything and remember whatever day you spend planning it is a day that you will have to enjoy it well john I thank you for that advice and it's good advice even for me at my old age now I appreciate it very much and it was very good talking with you and we're at we're at the conclusion of our talk and you know good sailing to you I trust that you'll be you'll leave in a couple days on your next sailing trip and best wishes aloha