It was not much different for my father who is pictured on the right sailing from New York in 1940 to the Hawaiian Islands. Ultimately, the two of them meant on board a cruise line. So I suppose my love for the sea must have been bred into me, otherwise I could not feel the things I do, nor have the dreams.

During the early 1940's my parents owned a couple of Little Boat and Yacht Shops in the San Francisco Bay area in California. After the war, and in the middle of a shipping strike, the business was closed. Mother made her fifth trip with her children in October, 1946 aboard the S.S. Matsonia for Honolulu, Oahu, Hawaii. We took residence in Waimanalo, where Uncle John had decided to remain following his last voyage. And as a child of three, I took to the sea like a fish in water.

I remember many long walks along the beach with Uncle John, early in the morning, and slowly edging our way along the shoreline. I can still vividly hear the waves lazily rolling onto the shore during low tide and smell the scent of the seaweed that often lay freshly on the sand from the night before. We would scan the ocean for glass balls that might bob across the ocean from Japan. Sometimes spotting one and waiting for it to come to shore, we sat on the sand and watched sand crabs scurry across the freshly washed beach from a small wave that had just receded back into the ocean. Eventually the glass ball would drift close enough to the shallow water and Uncle John would let me retrieve it. Often, we would find the dark green balls on the beach, waiting for someone to pick up. I still have a few of these balls, now stowed beneath a glass top table along with other treasures from the sea.