Polynesian music filled the salty air as visitors boarded the 72-foot canoe docked outside of the Ocean Institute in Dana Point.
The Hikianalia Voyaging Canoe, on one stop of a 2,800-mile voyage to promote cultural exchange and ocean education, was open for public viewing on Saturday, Oct. 27 and Sunday, Oct. 28.
Visitors could learn how the vessel, powered by wind and solar energy, made its way from Hawaii and down California’s coastline, to see firsthand how tight the sleeping quarters were for the crew, and glimpse into the captain’s quarters, where high-tech equipment allowed the travelers to gather and share environmental data.
“It’s a floating classroom,” said crewmember Hiapo Elderts as he helped people hop on board.
A long journey
Hikianalia’s journey goes further back than its jaunt along the California coastline. It started thousands of years ago with voyagers who used the stars as a map during their exploration of the sea.
The vessel is sister boat of Hōkūle’a, launched in the ’70s to revive a nearly extinct culture of voyagers who were the first Polynesians to arrive at the archipelago of Hawaii.
Hōkūle‘a’s first voyage was to Tahiti was in 1976, a successful adventure that brought out half the island to greet its arrival. But two years later, another voyage by an inexperienced crew would turn tragic.
Nainoa Thompson, aboard during that fateful 1978 journey, gave a rare, firsthand account at the Ocean Institute on Friday, Oct. 26, of the trip when their canoe capsized in stormy seas off Moloka‘i.
“I’ll never forget the color of pure aqua, salt water, filling the hulls,” he said, describing how the crew was continuously knocked off the boat by the big waves and gale-force winds. “We were in real trouble.”
Thompson told of how Eddie Aikau, known as one of the world’s greatest big-wave surfers and the only certified lifeguard at Waimea Bay on the North Shore, left on a surfboard in search of help.
“He was the kind of hero Hawaii needed to have. Real ones defined not by what they say, but what they do,” Thompson said. “Hawaiian children had someone to look to who was a real hero…Every cell in this man’s body (was) designed to help those who can’t help themselves.”
After their boat was rescued later that evening by the Coast Guard, Aikau was nowhere in sight after days, even weeks of searching. The entire country was heartbroken.
“We just broke apart,” Thompson said of the crew. “The Hawaiian elders said ‘this can not end this way’.”
Sister boat
The following year, one of the last remaining experienced voyagers named Mau Piailug trained Thompson to navigate Hōkūle‘a, in an attempt to replicate the successful 1976 voyage.
They made the journey from Tahiti back to Hawai’i, a feat that hadn’t been accomplished in 600 years and the beginning of many successful voyages in the following decades.
In 2000, Hōkūleʻa was proclaimed as Hawaii’s first state treasure.
The Hikianalia, its sister ship, was built in 2012 as an escort boat and then turned into a floating classroom for the ocean environment, to continue to spread the stories of the Polynesian culture and to train future voyagers.
For weeks, the boat has been stopping at ports and harbors along the California coast during the “Alahula Kai o Maleka Hikianalia California Voyage,” starting in Northern California and wrapping up the 2,800-mile journey in San Diego.
In Dana Point, hundreds gathered as it came into the small harbor last week.
“It was amazing, when the canoes circled us, it made a whirlpool,” said Elderts. “I never saw that happen before.”
‘It takes a village’
Elderts helped sail the boat from New Zealand to Hawaii after it was built, then to Tahiti, and now along the California coast.
He said the research conducted by the boat’s crew has much in common with that of the Ocean Institute’s marine biologists: testing plankton, tagging fish, weighing them and opening their stomachs to document what they find inside.
The crew send their data to the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration and do live feeds for classrooms that follow their journey.
Mike Garrett, who helped organize the Dana Point stop, was impressed with the knowledge shared.
“I think it’s really good to have them here to share what their mission is about, bringing awareness of keeping the ocean clean of plastic,” he said. “We want to preserve it for our kids and their kids.”
And it’s going to take a community of cultures coming together to save Mother Earth, he said.
“It’s the sea. It’s going to take everyone’s help,” he said. “It takes the whole village to save the Earth.”
For more information about the voyage, go to hokulea.com.
