Pauline Nguyen

When Saigon fell to communist rule in 1975, my father realised that he had no choice but to escape Vietnam.

And the only way that he could do this was to build a boat and smuggle himself and his family out to sea.

I was three years old at the time and my brother Lewis was two.

My grandmother begged my father not to leave.

She couldn't understand how a parent would want to risk perishing their children out at sea.

But my father is a very determined man.

He stands at just five foot one, a little shorter than myself.

But what he lacks in inches, he makes up for in fearlessness and determination.

And he had already made up his mind.

He would rather die trying than risk imprisonment or to

suffer a fate far worse, the re-education camps.

It's not enough that they take our freedom, he would tell me.

They want to take our thoughts as well.

My father was determined that if we died, we will all die together.

So in October 1977, armed with only a rudimentary map and a compass to guide him, my father steered our vessel, our tiny vessel,

out into the South China Sea.

We spent our days drifting and waiting and praying.

We prayed that a foreign ship might come and save us.

We prayed that we might find friendly shores.

We prayed that the pirates wouldn't attack us, and we prayed that our supplies would not run out.