This is our 'claim to fame'.
We're in a book called Cutting Loose; From Rat Race to Dream Lifestyles
1996 Impact Journal Press
By Al Louis Ripskis
Chapter 5: Family at Sea

Intro: Romance, adventure and a thirst for challenges led Scott and Donna, with their 2 yr old son, Nathan, to set off to circumnavigate the world in their 36 ft yacht. While visiting forty countries they covered 50,000 nautical miles. Their daughter, Celeste, was born on the way.

Have you ever thought or said something to the effect, "Man, wouldn't it be great to sail the South Seas?" Well, this was the exact, offhand remark that slipped out of Scott's mouth one day that set the stage for their voyage.

"But," as Scott and his wife Donna told me on their boat, Bluejay, anchored in the Tobago Cays (1994), "we were practical enough to quickly get past the romanticism and look at the real logistics for doing something like that."

The Hansens developed their love for sailing and traveling on the West Coast. Scott had been racing yachts around Seattle for ten years. One summer he worked as a yacht rigger. Even Donna had done some racing. Before they had Nathan, they had sailed up and down the West Coast - from Mexico to Canada. In 1983, they took the summer off and logged in 7,000 miles sailing to Hawaii and back.

For 4 yrs. Scott ran his own auto repair shop, which gave him plenty of experience with repairing engines and electronic equipment. That came in handy when his yacht motor blew up in the Red Sea.

The most common question people ask Scott when they learn that he is sailing around the world with his family is 'How can you afford it?' His answer: "Let's face it, most people live from paycheck to paycheck and they don't even make that stretch, so they have heavy credit card debt. You have to develop, not so much willpower as 'won't power' and say, 'No, I won't use charge cards; no, I won't buy a brand new car every few years. I'm going to be careful and save money so we can have our dream cruise.'

Once they set sail, their monthly income was $800, $500 from their house rental and $300 from a previous boat they sold on an installment contract.

"This boat is paid for. But it's not insured. Very few of the world cruising yachts are. Hardly anyone can afford it. It just costs too much. Most of the guys just figure 'Well, if I put it on the reef, that's my fault. If somebody else hits me, well, hopefully, we can work something out with them.' Life is a little bit of a gamble."

"You have to understand that there is a lot involved with uprooting everything and going sailing around the world. It's more than a romantic decision."

So in 1988, when Scott was 33, Donna a few years younger, and their son Nathan was 2, they set off for their around-the-world voyage.

Wanting to see the West Coast and get acclimated to their new lifestyle, they headed north along the Canadian Pacific coast almost all the way to Alaska. Then they doubled back and went as far south as Cabo San Lucas at the southern tip of Mexico's Baja Peninsula, stopping at various ports and interesting places along the way.

With their shakedown cruise successfully completed, their next destination was Hawaii. They enjoyed the Hawaiian Islands so much that they wound up exploring Hawaii for half a year. Scott even got a job for awhile in a marine store while a relative considered sailing with them.

The Hawaiian stopover set the tone for the remainder of their trip. They explored at leisure the places they found interesting and really got to know the local people. That was one of the reasons their journey stretched into 7 years from the 3 they had originally planned.

Their favorite place and where they stayed for four months, was the Kingdom of Tonga. The people are extremely friendly and speak English. The place is beautiful and relatively unspoiled by tourism. The anchorages were nice and secure and there were plenty of parts and supplies on hand. The only downside to the stay in Tonga was that Scott picked up dengue fever that had him flat on his back and weak as a kitten for two weeks. Everything hurts and that's why they call it the 'Break-bone fever'.

Fiji was another island they thoroughly enjoyed for a month, particularly its profuse and extraordinarily beautiful coral.

They stayed a year in the Malaysia, Singapore, and Thailand area because they enjoyed the people, the rich culture and the scenery. They also flew home to show off the new member of the family!

The Red Sea was another highlight of their trip - both positively and negatively. "The Red Sea is gorgeous, with some of the best coral reefs, fish and water anywhere. It's also very difficult to sail, since the prevailing winds are most from the north, the direction you're headed."

But the reason that the Red Sea will be forever etched in Scott's mind is that 200 miles south of the Suez, their yacht engine blew up. It was under sail for all two hundred miles into headwinds. In the Port of Suez, Scott had to mount the dinghy motor and was just barely able to crawl through the Canal. The yacht had to sail all the way to Cyprus to get the appropriate parts, where Scott fixed the engine himself. Other than that they enjoyed their two and half month layover in Cyprus.

"We had just come from countries where everything is dirty and covered with flies in open markets. We got to Cyprus where they have these beautiful air conditioned central markets and Wow, the lettuce is green!"

Early in our interview Scott told me that an extended period of "sailing changes everybody. They don't come back the same person that they left."

"How did it change you?" of course was my next question.

"Our reason for being out there shifted. We became more interested in what we could do for others; not so much in what we could see and do for ourselves." A cyclone was the catalyst.

"In February 1990, while in Pago Pago Harbor, American Samoa, we got hit by a very bad cyclone. Cyclone Ofa came through with 125 mile an hour winds, doing severe damage. The island was completely without power and water. We made it through the cyclone with no damage to ourselves or the boat."

But Swains Island, 200 miles north was hit even worse. Wally Jennings, whose family owns it, came to the Hansens with this plea:

"My people are in a very bad way. They don't have food, power or water, and they desperately need medical supplies. The rusty old power boat that used to bring the staples of life, like flour, rice, canned foods, was sunk in the cyclone. They are stranded. Would you be willing to take a load of supplies up there?"

"We would be happy to," was Scott's immediate response. The next day a big van loaded to the top with boxes - everything from sewing machines to shovels to food and medicine - appeared at the dock, near Bluejay.

On the way over to Swains Island, Scott hooked a 72-pound Yellow Fin tuna, which they brought along with the rest of the supplies for the islanders. As with all fish stories, this one got elaborated with the re-telling as it went around the radio. When they returned to Samoa, they were repeatedly asked about the "300-pound fish" that they were supposed to have caught.

The Swains islanders showed their gratitude by giving the Hansens an expensive Tokelou woven mat, bananas, lobsters, coconuts and more.

"That is a real common problem, when you get off the beaten track and visit the old Pacific islands - they just shut down everything. It becomes an event. Since they get so few visitors and island life is the same every day, when a yacht comes in, oh man, they throw you a big feast, and load you up with lobster, coconuts and whatever else they have. So what we do is stock our boat with fishing hooks, diving face masks, T-shirts and other practical things that we can try to give back to them. In the giving wars you can't win. They are really great people."

Another way that extended sailing changes people is that it slows down the pace of their lives and changes their priorities.

"When you go to the South Seas and get to know the islanders, you find out that what is really important to them is their families. Work is far down the list of priorities. They have very little motivation for work. We tend to sometimes look down our noses at the and say 'Oh, they are doing absolutely nothing but sitting under a coconut tree talking.' But what they are doing is spending a lot of time with their friends and families, being helpful to each other and the community. It's a very communal system. And they don't worry about anything. They don't have the worries we have. Nobody is starving. They are a low-density society that is warm and plentiful. It doesn't take a lot of effort to meet one's daily need of having a place to sleep and something to eat."

Scott called my attention to some common misconceptions about what the sailing life is all about. He says that vacationers come out to the islands and see people on boats having a good time wind surfing, skiing, snorkeling or scuba diving among the magnificent coral and think that is all we basically do and say, 'Wow, what a great lifestyle!" Well, that's not the complete picture, according to Scott.

"We are really more like European gypsies. We are almost a traveling community. We have to work, teach our kids, do our laundry, go barter in the market. This lifestyle isn't for everyone. I call it deprivation and reward. We have a video onboard; we can control the movies our kids see. We have a microwave. It is a strange combination of modern conveniences and old ways."

"You can't just throw your soiled laundry into a washer and drier. All your laundry has to be done by hand in a bucket on a river bank, because you can't wash your clothes in salty, sea water. There are no huge supermarkets. You don't have a great big walk-in refrigerator or freezer. We have to go to markets where we buy many more fresh things and do more real cooking, not just heating up prepared foods. We don't take long showers."

"There are things that you give up and things that you get. But the rewards aren't what some people think they are. For instance, we have the privilege of teaching our kids exactly what we want. We have total control over the kind of input they receive. We don't have a sewer like television backing up into our lives."

"We have a very good friend at home who is the vice principal of a grade school and a high school. He gave us the textbooks for each level. We don't use correspondence schools, not only because they are expensive but it is very, very difficult - especially if you like the-out-of-the-way places, as we do - to get anything sent back to you."

"In traveling with kids we have a hidden benefit that people don't realize. I get to be a full-time dad, and Donna gets to be a full-time mom. Now sometimes that can be a hassle; sometimes we want to get away from the kids. We are normal people. But we really appreciate that our kids are a part of a traditional, old-time family.

"Everyone seems to think that it's so important for kids to interact with their peers. But if you look at what kids teach kids, you realize that it's often what we don't want them to learn, like delinquency and drugs. We don't really want children teaching children. We want them to learn to interact, how to get along and know how to make friends. Going to school certainly helps those social skills. Nathan went to school in Australia and the States for a while.

"But most importantly Nathan has been participating in the school of life. On this trip he has been exposed to a wealth of different people, cultures and countries. His noon latitude shot with a sextant the other day was less than a mile off. He has learned how to handle a boat. He is also becoming an excellent swimmer and diver all at age 9.

"We are always on the look-out for yachts with kids. In most cases we find that these kids are doing better academically on boats than the kids back home. Educating their kids is a fairly major commitment by the parents of sailing families."

The Hansens stayed in Bundaberg, Australia, six months, where their 'bub'(Aussie for baby), Celeste was born. In all they spent almost a year in Australia. The entire delivery, including hospital and doctor fees, cost under $400. "If we had had the baby in the States, the cost would have been in the thousands." Which explains why the Hansens carry only a catastrophic, high deductible family health plan. Even so they think "it's pretty useless and it costs a lot of money. In most countries you don't need a health policy; there are public health plans. Or you cover your own out-of-pocket expenses." They found the out-of-pocket medical costs to be quite reasonable wherever they went and much less than what they are in the States.

The Hansens just loved Bundaberg. "The people there are so down home. If you go there as a stranger to a church on Sunday, you are guaranteed to be invited home for Sunday dinner. It's a great place. It's what it used to be like in the States, 50 or 60 years ago. A lot of people we got to know cried when we left.

"There is a big misconception in the United States that poverty breeds crime. It doesn't. The notion is totally absurd. We have been to some of the poorest countries on the face of the earth. They will give you their last morsel of food that they have. Integrity is the moral fiber that you have been taught; it's your deep convictions.

Given how much the Hansens enjoyed sailing the seven seas, I asked them the unavoidable question: Why were they, after exploring the Caribbean, planning to sell their boat and explore the East Coast by car before returning to Seattle?

At this point Donna wanted to chime in with a mea culpa. But Scott came to her defense by explaining that ocean travel tends to be harder on a woman than a man. And after almost seven years they both are a bit tired and want to go home. Another reason is that Scott comes from a very close, extended family and doesn't like the idea of missing out on seeing the nieces and nephews grow up. Their small boat has also become quite crowded now that the family has grown to four.

But they are not ruling out the possibility of eventually buying a bigger boat and doing an encore.

AND WE DID!