I'm Blue For You

We sailed from Kawaihae to Hilo. Kona is on the leeward side of the island which means it gets very little rain. Hilo is on the windward side which means it gets a ton of it. It is actually one of the wettest cities in the world.

The Outreach Team that my dad led had made some changes as some people left and new people were added. Some of the new guys like Ted McKenzie and Steven Wallett were to become some of my very good friends whom I would see all over the world in later years. But they got right to work in Hilo doing evangelism once again in schools and churches and on the streets.

The weather in Hilo matched my mood. For the first time in my life, I actually missed a girl - that inconsolable, mournful longing just to be with her. So this is what it felt like. I had some help with my blues from a popular group at the time called Men at Work. They had a song called “Blue for You” which was about a break up but the sentiments worked for my situation as well.


Sometimes the sun shines in,

And I close the blinds,

'Cos I can't stand to see the light of day.

I have no use for pain,

But I don't mind the rain,

'Cos I can stare outside and hear the sound….


I’m blue for you. I’m blue for you.

I don’t know what to do. 1


From Hilo, we sailed on to the island of Maui. We anchored offshore in the Auau Channel near Lahaina, a world-reknowned spot for whale watching, which we experienced while we were there. I continued to listen to “Blue for You” lying in my bunk with the sun reflecting crinkly dancing patterns off the ocean into my porthole (window) and onto the deckhead (ceiling).


I’m blue for you. I’m blue for you. 

I don’t know what to do. 


As the song progresses, the character knows he has to get over his break up.


I must get out and about,

Of that I have no doubt. 

There surely must be new places to go.

Sights I've never seen,

All with pastures green


While I wasn’t trying to get over it, I did decide to get out and about. One of my friends had built a kayak with his dad they let me use. I would paddle out away from the ship and dive down into the ocean. It was an exhilarating experience, opening my eyes under water and only seeing deep, deep blue all around me. I felt tiny in the vastness of the ocean. I couldn’t completely relax because always, in the back of my mind, I was wondering what other creatures were there in the vastness and whether one might be interested in me. And it was while we were there in that incredible setting that something happened to change our future. 

We used one of our lifeboats as a launch to get from ship to shore and shore to ship and one day a Coast Guard boat followed our launch out to the ship and came aboard to talk with the leaders. The Anastasis was classified as a cargo vessel, which meant less stringent guidelines than a passenger vessel. The US Coast Guard had passed us when we were in California but in Hawaii they decided that, because we had families on board, we weren’t up to fire code because we didn’t have a sprinkler system.

We sailed to the capitol of Honolulu on the island of Oahu then the Coast Guard shut us down until we could install a sprinkler system throughout the entire ship. It was going take thousands of man-hours and many thousands of dollars. In addition, all the women and children had to leave the ship during the process.

Before the families had to vacate, my brother, Samuel graduated high school. He was in a class of four. The FEET ministry that my sister and brother-in-law had been involved with out of Hong Kong was putting together a team to travel in the US mainland and Samuel decided to sign up.


1.   HAY, COLIN JAMES, © EMI Music Publishing


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