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Double-hulled Sailing Canoe Crosses the Globe and Lands at False Bay Hope Spot in South Africa

Hōkūleʻa, the incredible wind-powered circumnavigation conducted by Mission Blue partner Pacific Voyaging Society, has recently reached the shores of South Africa, halfway around the world from her home in Hawaiʻi. On November 10th, the sailing canoe pulled into False Bay, a Mission Blue Hope Spot, after having rounded the southernmost point of Africa. Ranging from Cape Point to Cape Hangklip near Cape Town, South Africa, False Bay is an area of dense kelp forests. Part of the False Bay Hope Spot is reserved as a marine protected area and no take zone, creating a sanctuary for large reef fish, abalone and small sharks. Fishing pressure in unprotected parts of False Bay is significant and pollution is also an issue in the area.…

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Sacred Forests – Part Two: A New Friend to the Rescue

By Sam Low, author of Hawaiiki Rising

A year earlier, Nainoa had driven into Honolulu to a restaurant called Fisherman’s Wharf – a place with a maritime motif, a motley collection of binnacles, steering wheels and curved ship’s ventilators – to have lunch with Herb Kane and a friend of his from Alaska.
The meeting was inspired by an event that took place more than two centuries earlier when Captain George Vancouver visited the island of Maui. While there, he measured a large canoe and found it to be over 108 feet long. It was fabricated, as he later wrote in his ship’s log, “of the finest pine.” Vancouver knew that pine did not grow in Hawaii.
“Where did the wood come from?”…

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Sacred Forests – Part I: The Search

By Sam Low, author of Hawaiiki Rising
In 1990, the Polynesian Voyaging Society decided to create a new canoe, to be called Hawai’iloa after a famous Tahitian navigator. Hawai’iloa would be built of traditional materials – lauhala for the sails, olana for the lashings, koa for the hulls, ohia for crossbeams to connect the hulls, and hau for stanchions, decks and steering paddles.
“Hokule’a was built quickly, of modern materials mostly,” Nainoa Thompson recalls, “and then we went right into sailing – it was an ocean project – the emphasis was on sailing her, not building her. But when our ancestors built and sailed voyaging canoes, it required the labor and arts of the entire community, everyone working together – some collecting the materials in the forest, others weaving the sails, carving the hulls, lashing, preparing food for the voyage, practicing rituals to protect the crew at sea.…

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UN Conference in Samoa Unites World Leaders Behind Small Island Nations as Climate Change Looms

By Courtney Mattison
Equipped only with the tools of Polynesian ancestors and their unwavering conviction, the crews of the Hōkūle‘a and Hikianalia traditional voyaging canoes sailed into Apia, Samoa on Sunday after navigating from Hawaii through Polynesia since May. The Pacific Voyagers and Nainoa Thompson – President and Master Navigator of the Polynesian Voyaging Society – were accompanied onboard the Hōkūle‘a for its most recent sail by ocean artist Wyland and Conservation International’s Greg Stone and were welcomed ashore by Dr. Sylvia Earle amid an impressive display of traditional Polynesian performers. Once on shore, the Samoa Head of State addressed his guests with a profoundly heartfelt speech expressing Samoa’s appreciation for its kinship with Hawaii, setting the tone for a four-day conference hosted by the United Nations on Small Island Developing States (SIDS).…

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Navigating the Starpaths toward a Sustainable Planet

This May, Master Navigator and Ocean Elder Nainoa Thompson will launch Hokule’a’s worldwide voyage from the island of Hawai’i. The theme is malama honua, which means to take care of each other and this island in the universe called earth, the only home we have.
There is a scientific aspect to the voyage as well. As nature guides Hokule’a and Hikianalia across the world, much focus will be on what lies beneath them.
“It’s a great voyage of peace, not just among ourselves, but making peace with nature,” said Sylvia Earle. Mission Blue and Dr. Earle are proud to be among the  scientists and agencies partnering on Hokulea’s worldwide voyage.
The voyage will include visits to marine areas that are being cared for and seeing progress and areas that need help. …

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The World is a Cruise Ship and the Cruise Ship is our World!

We were quite shocked last’s week in regards to the events aboard the Carnival cruise ship – but not in the way you would imagine. Being sailors and ocean navigators, we are used to taking care of our surroundings. In fact we have a saying that goes like this: “The island is our Vaka and the Vaka is our island”. Meaning that if you don’t take care of your Vaka or boat, you are not taking care of your home, your land, your world. What happened on that particular cruise ship is a great mirror to what is happening in our society.

When you are on a vaka, sailing the oceans, one thing quickly becomes extremely clear. For sanity to exist, for people to enjoy their time and for sailing to go smoothly, it is extremely important that everybody respect each other’s privacy and acts with civility.…

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