Barb's Weblog

An interesting thing happened yesterday! A woman came across my blog when looking for an old friend, Ivo Van Laake, a young sailor I knew in 1970 in the Hawaii Yacht Club, the Ala Wai, in Honolulu. I had posted an image of myself with his boat in the background. She called me and I said I would help her locate him if I could. He has likely had an amazing life, being a bold and adventurous man who dreamed ofcircumnavigating in an 18'1" sailboat shaped like a dutch shoe and painted yellow and blue, like his hair and eyes as he used to say. He was from the Netherlands, perhaps someone out there can recall him and has information about him I can pass on to Ruth!

These images were taken in the summer of 1970, when I turned 16 years old. An industrious parakeet devoured the one corner, but its still good enough to hopefully jog some memories. I recall the very day Ivo arrived in the Ala Wai. I was sailing out of the harbor in a brisk tradewind in a Soling with a group of friends, bounding over the swells on our way out for an absolutely righteous sail. Ivo was sailing in, beaming happily and waving at us as we headed out. A couple hours later, wet and windblown we kids got dropped off back at the "El Toro Dock", and the Vlaag was moored there, so I met Ivo within a couple hours of his arrival at the Hawaii Yacht Club.

That summer and the following fall Ivo lived in the Harbor and we all loved him, grown ups and kids alike, he was a great favorite of all the old salts around the club, he always had time to talk story, as we say, and I recall tons of fun days spent with him and all the harbor brats. On my 16th birthday (might have been 15th, I forget) me and Ivo and a huge group of us went to see Woodstock, we sat thru it twice. It was the first run showing at a classic Waikiki theater, all palm trees and fake ceiling-sky, midnight blue with clouds, very deco beautiful in there. I remember dinners with him aboard the Traveler, washing his hair with a hose on the end of the dock, general horseplay around the harbor. I was pretty involved with my 'little kid time' harbor friends and school friends, so I did not pay nearly enough attention to what he was doing. He must have worked, he was involved with lots of other 'older' girls and friends.

He sailed away and wrote me a small but infinitely precious stack of letters mailed from around the south pacific, sometimes from ports, sometimes brought from other boats whose skippers brought letters to the HYC for other harbor people. His return address either siomply Vlaag, or general delivery Papa'ete, Tahiti. Ivo wrote in this great way, you could hear his passion and lust for the sea and traveling, his fear and loneliness as well. He loved the sea with a drive I found incredible. His letters are filled with adventures and terrifying storms, and peaceful still mornings. I picture him always with his flute, jamming Dave Brubeck in his foc'sl, singing out his love of life out over the still blue seas before a day of brisk sail toward the next island port.

His last letter came after I had moved away to Oregon to my sister's house in the forest and had fallen in love with Haole, and I answered but never heard of him again. He has become a beautiful memory filled with the wildness of youth and the passion for freedom. I have often wondered about him, hoping his life is filled with adventure and new places, the things that flow in his veins instead of simply blood like the rest of us.

If any of you have any idea where he is, or what became of him. please answer this blog by email and I will pass your information on to Ruth in Sausalito. Ruth sailed from the mainland to Hawaii with him in 1969, I think to the big island before he came across the Alenuihaha and Molokai channels in the tiny bold sailboat, alone in itself a difficult feat! Ask any Hawaiian sailor!

THANKS!!!!
Barb

9:21 AM — e-mail me your comments