GOOD OLD DAYS:

Kasey DeVita now lives in New York but still recalls the magical two years when she and her family left Newport Harbor for a long journey in their beloved boat, the Rose of Sharon.

Designed by famous ship designer Starling Burgess in 1930, the 52-foot schooner has since changed hands and aesthetics but remains vivid in DeVita’s imagination.

“My family was always around boats,” DeVita said. “Mom worked on boats for people in the harbor, and my father did boat deliveries. They, and others like them, were called ‘boat people’ — not all of them necessarily owned a boat all the time but were always on them or around them.”

Her mother studied anthropology at UCI, so DeVita recalls that her home was always filled with professors, grad students and other “boat people.”

After moving to Costa Mesa, DeVita, her sister, mother and stepfather later moved to a farm that belonged to UCI, where DeVita enjoyed living among ponies, a tree house, a Guatemalan teacher and a Samoan man who built an outrigger canoe by their barn.

“Back then, Newport Beach, Costa Mesa, Irvine — it was almost like [to me] one town, one people,” DeVita said. “It was the late ’60s...among the university and boat crowds, things were always easygoing.”

Roy Wildman purchased the Rose of Sharon in Michigan and brought it back with his family through the Caribbean Sea and Panama Canal.

DeVita recalled little of the preparations. She and her sister, Kelley, were sent to stay with their father in Davis for about a month. When they returned, they found their mother and stepfather packing and selling their possessions.

“We kids were being told that we were going to sail around the world,” DeVita said. “I was barely 7 at the time. Knowing that we were going to sail around the world, I looked at some maps and started reading a book that taught Portuguese — just in case.”

The family then drove to Michigan with Wildman’s father, Mitch.

“When I ‘met’ the Rose of Sharon, I only remember that she was big and beautiful, and I was very happy that we were going to get to sail around the world on her,” DeVita said.

The family began their trip in the summer of 1970.

When they reached Puerto Rico, DeVita had developed a relationship with the boat, which had become her home.

“The Rose knew me, and I knew her, and we talked to each other in special ways,” she said.

When the schooner approached Newport Harbor two years to the day after the family left for Michigan, they were surprised at their reception.

“I remember that the docks were crowded with people, that everyone was shouting and waving and taking pictures,” DeVita said.

They docked at South Shore Yacht Club, where they were welcomed by DeVita’s godmother and her two daughters.

“Seeing them made me feel like I was home again, after so long of not seeing anyone I knew,” she said.

CANDICE BAKER can be reached at (949) 494-5480 or at candice.baker@latimes.com.