PVS Newletter / Ho‘oilo (Rainy Season) 1996
Exploration Learning Center Launched
On January 21, 1996, after clearing a canoe site among the ironwood trees on the beach at Hakipu'u, the area was dedicated and blessed.
The site, next to Kualoa Regional Park on Kine'ohe Bay, O'ahu, was developed through a a partnership between PVS and the Hakipu'u 'Ohana and Kualoa Ranch.
The site will eventually house sixman sailing canoes and paddling canoes used in PVS's Exploration Learning Center. The double-hulled canoe Eala, used by PVS for coastal voyaging, is moored at He'eia Kea Pier, Kine'ohe.
Kane'ohe Bay has been selected as the primary site for the Exploration Learning Center on O'ahu because of its safe conditions for teaching sailing (a well protected bay with a barrier reef) and its rich cultural, scientific, educational, and community resources. To make use of these resources, PVS is developing education programs which integrate science and culture, and which require students to apply classroom learning to real life challenges and experiences.
The purpose of the Center is to excite and challenge students to learn about, respect, and care for the land, sea, and people of Hawai'i and to contribute to the Vision and Mission of PVS. Programs are designed to:
- develop a love of learning, exploring and making discoveries
- increase cultural and environmental awareness, knowledge, and understanding
- develop physical and emotional health
- develop goal-oriented planning, decision-making, and problem-solving skills.
Students from UH Manoa's Hawaiian Studies Program, Windward Community College, and Wai'anae High School participated in the ELC during the Spring of 1996. Wai'anae Hawaiian Civic Club, Hui Nalu, and Loch Eggers donated sailing canoes for the program. The program is supported by the Hawai'i Community Foundation and Queen's Health Systems.
Six-man sailing canoe, Kane‘ohe Bay
Sailing in the Bay
Exploration Learning Center
Vision
A healthy, productive, safe Hawai'i and planet Earth.
Mission
In partnership with other groups, PVS is committed to developing and conducting model educational programs using voyaging to excite and challenge students and their communities to learn about, respect, and care for their natural and social environment.
Goals
- Develop and conduct a voyaging program that prepares students to take responsibility for themselves, their community, and their environment.
- Forge partnerships with cultural and scientific organizations, government agencies, and community groups to develop and maintain healthy, productive, safe communities.
E Holopuni ana O'ahu: Sail Around O'ahu
From April 14 to April 20, twenty-six Wai'anae High School students from Susan Lum's Marine Science Learning Center voyaged around O'ahu with the Polynesian Voyaging Society. They sailed on board the coastal voyaging canoe Eala, built in Wai'anae and launched in 1980 at Poka'i Bay.
Students trained at Poka'i Bay and Maunalua Bay, where they camped at the Kaiser Estate (courtesy of Bishop Estate/MBE) on the first night of their journey. Because of strong tradewinds, Eala was towed around Makapu'u and docked at Moku o Lo'e (Coconut island), where students rejoined the canoe and stayed as guests of the Hawai'i Institute of Marine Biology (HIMB), a UH Minoa research facility. HIMB Director Gordon Grau and other researchers spoke to the students about careers in marine biology and current research on fish production and aquaculture, tiger shark and fish migrations, coral reproduction, and gender changes in reef fish such as the uhu (parrot fish) and hinalea (wrasse).
The next night the students camped at Kualoa, then sailed into Kahana Bay on April 17 to a welcome ceremony, lu'au, and arts and crafts presentations by the Kahana community and Kahuku High School students. One crew member commented: "I had tears in my eyes. What a great feeling to learn that Hawaiian people still care about all the Hawaiian ways."
Arriving at Kahana in a rain squall
From Kahana, the students sailed around Kahuku to Haleiwa Boat Harbor (April 18); then around Kaena Point to Makaha (April 19). That night Pi'ikea Miller of PVS taught them about navigation and stars.
On the final leg of their voyage Makaha to Poka‘i Bay, students took command of the canoe and sailed on their own. Four paddling canoes came out to greet them, and the Wai'anae community as well as the students' families welcomed the voyagers back home with a lunchtime lu‘au.
One captain summed up their achievement: "It's a dream come true, learning how to work as a team and a crew, seeing how much we can work with each other and accomplish."
UH Voyage to Moloka‘i & Lana‘i
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.
Sail Planning
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 the canoe in.
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 cliffi, 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-trappcd by a Kona storm in the seacave where he kept her hidden from others. Makakchau 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 Liina'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 Kciapaka'a, descendants of La'amaomao, the wind god[dess]. The canoe was docked 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."
PVS Officers and Board of Directors
Officers: Myron "Pinky" Thompson, President; Keali'ipu'aimoku Froiseth, V-President; Dawn Gohara, Treasurer; Bob Worthington, Secretary
Directors: Kenneth Brown, Wally Froiseth, Catherine Fuller, Brickwood Galuteria, Harry Ho, Rey Jonsson, Lilikala Kame'eleihiwa, Kawika Kapahulehua, Kapua Lindo, Wiliam Ornelles, Dr. Ben Tamura, Laura Thompson, Michael Tongg, Dr. Nathan Wong, Elisa Yadao, August Yee
Consultant: Ben Finney