There are no e-mails to check, no online charts to reference, no modern-day distractions – only the stars, sea, wind and Mother Nature to guide the crew.
The Polynesian canoe Hōkūleʻa has been making its way down the Southern California coastline, previously stopping in Marina Del Rey and earlier this week in Newport Beach. It will be docking at the Ocean Institute in Dana Point on Saturday for the weekend before heading to the Maritime Museum of San Diego from Nov. 8-14.
It is all part of a four-year adventure navigating the Pacific Ocean.
“It’s a great way to disconnect and reconnect with the nature around us,” said crewmember Jonah Apo, from Oahu. “We are fully immersed when we are deep at sea.”
Thousands of years ago, voyagers used only nature and ancestral knowledge as their map to navigate between islands, but through the generations the knowledge was lost.
In an attempt to resurrect the traditional methods, the Polynesian Voyaging Society built the Hōkūleʻa, a double-hulled canoe, for an inaugural trip from Hawaii to Tahiti in 1976.
“Voyaging is the origin of how Polynesians migrated throughout the Pacific, they were exceptional navigators and adventurers. They were the astronauts of their time,” Apo said. “At one point, that knowledge and history was lost.
“We’re reclaiming that culture and knowledge of navigators,” he said. “When you think of the people who came before you, it’s an important aspect in Hawaiian culture.”
During a tragic trip two years after the first voyage, in 1978, surfing big-wave legend Eddie Aikau died while trying to save fellow crew members caught in a storm. He attempted to paddle to shore for help, but was never seen again.
The rest of the crew was eventually saved, and a plaque at the front of the ship today reminds people of Aikau’s legacy.
Not wanting to end the ship’s story with Aikau’s death, one of the last remaining experienced voyagers, Mau Piailug, trained others to…
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