Newsletter--Ho'oilo 1996

From March 25-March 30, two teams of students from UH Manoa and Windward Community College sailed Eala from O'ahu to Hale o Lono, Moloka'i, around Lana'i, then back to Moloka'i and O'ahu.

The wind god, La'amaomao, who is said to have lived at Hale o Lono, was with the students all the way. On March 25, northerly winds on the back end of a cold front moving past O'ahu allowed the first team of students to sail Eala on a beam reach from Maunalua Bay across the Kaiwi Channel to Moloka'i. The steersman brought the canoe to the mouth of Hale o Lono harbor, and the students paddled in and moored the canoe.

After camping at Hale o Lono overnight, the first team returned to O'ahu on the two power boats accompanying the canoe, and on Wednesday March 27, the second team crossed the channel to Hale o Lono. A lull in the winds made both channel crossings comfortable, without chops, only large northerly swells rolling through. The humpback whales were out in force, surfacing near the boats at times, or blowing, breaching and slapping the ocean with their long side-fins and tails in the distance.

The next morning, light trades returned, allowing the students to head south to Lana'i. After being towed through a wind shadow created by the the East Moloka'i Mountains, the canoe found wind off Lana'i and made a beam reach along the tall, steep cliffs on the SW coast of the island. The cliffs, jagged at the top and lit red by the afternoon sun, looked like the walls of an ancient fortress.

With jib flying, Eala was doing about ten knots in the trade winds pouring over the cliffs. These cliffs, called Kaholo Pali ("The running cliffs"), are aptly named. The front stay, to which the jib was attached, eventually pulled up the decking, and the crew had to stop the canoe to re-rig it.

That night the canoe docked at Manele Boat Harbor. Fishing from one of the escort boats on the way to Manele, Nainoa Thompson and Hiroshi Kato, Dean of Instruction at Windward Community College, scored four aku, one of which became part of the dinner. Gary Suzuki, Lana'i crew member on the 1995 voyage to the Marquesas, was heading out of the harbor in his small fishing boat when the canoe came in. He returned late at night with some u'u, and joined the crew for dinner and breakfast.

Early the next morning the crew paddled Eala out of the harbor, past the famous rock of Pu'upehe. According to tradition, a beautiful young girl named Pu'upehe was buried there by her possessive lover Makakehau after she drowned--trapped by a Kona storm in the seacave where he kept her hidden from others. Makakehau climbed the steep 80-foot rock island with her body, built a tomb for her, then leaped to his death into the waves breaking at the base of the cliff...

Outside Manele Bay, Eala hitched up a tow to the wind line in the 'Au'au Channel between Maui and Lana'i, and made a wet and bumpy broad reach in strong trades back to Hale o Lono along the southern coast of Moloka'i, the land of Paka'a and Kuapaka'a, descendants of La'amaomao, the wind god[dess]. The canoe was clocked at 12 knots. The following day, with lighter trades still blowing, the crew sailed back to Maunalua Bay.

The voyage was the perfect culmination for the Spring 1996 college voyaging program; students were able to apply all they had learned about the winds, ocean, weather and sailing, and to visit some of the special places of Hawai'i, made extra special and memorable because they were reached under sail on a canoe. As one captain wrote in her journal about the first leg, "It was overwhelming, a completely wonderful experience.... It was a complete success in every way and I am extremely proud to say I was a captain of this team. It was an honor and a privilege. It was the experience of a lifetime."