Voyager family returns after more than four years learning at sea

Voyager family returns after more than four years learning at sea
MaryAnnBenitez 
Thursday, December 10, 2009

After four and half years sailing a catamaran halfway around the world, a family of four are back in Hong Kong.

Former Cable News reporter, Cam Highfield, her British husband Arni, a retired marine police officer, and their daughters Molly and Nancy docked her yesterday after a once-in-a-lifetime voyage that took them to 20 countries.

Molly, 11, blogged: "Wow! This is really, um ... how can I describe it? Well, it feels great being back in Hong Kong, but it also feels a bit unfamiliar. But it's good to be home."

Arni Highfield said the voyage allowed them to go to "places and meet people together as a family."

They plan to stay put in Hong Kong for a while, living in their catamaran, Jade, and see if they can get used to being back in home port.

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Cam, a Hong Kong-Chinese, who home-schooled their daughters, said it was not much different from regular school except that they did not have classmates.

Their journey took them through the South Pacific, then back to the northern hemisphere up through Guam and Micronesia, Japan and South Korea.

The voyage fulfilled Arni's dream of traveling the world in a yacht.

"It was Arni - otherwise Mr Highfield - who started having the idea of traveling the world on a yacht," Cam said of her husband's dream.

According to the family website, Arni Highfield joined the merchant navy in England, at 16.

He later became a marine police officer in Hong Kong.

As he approached retirement, finally, he edged was closer to his dream, by reading a mountains of yachting magazines.

Then he joined the Hebe Haven Yacht Club in Hong Kong and acquired Paloma, his first sailing yacht, a 22-foot Sonata.

Later, the family bought Rafiki, a 40-foot yacht. As retirement loomed, Highfield decided to buy a new catamaran from the United States, a Manta 42-footer.

The family sailed out of Hong Kong on the QEII to England, a perk of Highfield's civil service retirement package.

From England, the family flew to Florida to fetch Jade, their catamaran. In May 2005, they set sail from Florida.

"We've been to more than 20 countries in our 4-year voyage," Cam Highfield wrote in a recent magazine article.

"Some of the most fascinating were the wild animals of the Galapagos, the people in the Cook Islands and Guam, and the culture in Vanuatu."