THE REYNOLDS FAMILY, THE NUCLEAR AGE AND A BRAVE WOODEN BOAT

Just published on Amazon and Barnes&Noble websites...

 

During the Cold War (1958), an American family, a Japanese yachtsman--and a cat--sailed their 50-foot yacht, Phoenix of Hiroshima, into the Pacific Proving Ground to challenge American atmospheric nuclear testing.

Dr. Earle Reynolds designed and built the boat while doing a 3-year study for the Atomic Energy Commission on the effects of nuclear radiation on the growth and development of children who survived Hiroshima.

The family--Earle, Barbara, Ted (2) and Jessica (14), with Nick Mikami--had just completed 3-1/2 years of a world cruise. They returned to Honolulu, ready for the last leg of their journey back to Hiroshima.

But the same government agency which had commissioned Earle's research on radiation was now testing nuclear weapons in the Pacific and had declared 390,000 square miles of ocean off-limits to Americans. The route the Phoenix had to take was right through this forbidden zone.

Now the voyage of pleasure became one of protest... In 1961 the Reynolds family also sailed to Nakhodka, USSR, to protest Soviet nuclear testing... During the Vietnam war, other crews sailed her to Vietnam 3 times to take medical supplies to the Red Cross there.

Decades later, the Phoenix sank in the Sacramento River. A tax-exempt corporation has been formed as her new owner, to raise and restore Phoenix of Hiroshima. For more information: PhoenixofHiroshima@gmail.com
Website: https://phoenixofhiroshima.org

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AUTHOR BIO

Jessica grew up in Hiroshima soon after World War 2. Now a wife, mother, and grandmother, Jessica describes herself as "anti-nuke" and "pro-life."

Jessica had part of her journal of her family's travels around the world published at 14 (Jessica's Journal). Her book To Russia with Love was published when she was 17. (Available from the Peace Resource Center, Wilmington College in Wilmington, Ohio.)

Her recently released biography of her mother is MUM: The Conscience, Courage and Compassion of Barbara Reynolds.

She has written two pro-life books: a biography, Gianna: Aborted and Lived to Tell About It and a novel, Compelling Interests.
Her novel New Every Morning, about a father-daughter relationship after he develops dementia, is sub-titled, "He hurt her. Now he is at her mercy. A different kind of love story."