Captain Moani Heimuli welcomes visitors to Hōkūle,a. Photo by Marc Kitteringham/Campbell River Mirror. From goldstreamgazette.com
For the next four years, Hawaiian Voyaging canoe Hōkūleʻa will be circumnavigating the Pacific Ocean, and Campbell Riverites got a chance to explore it on Aug. 3.
The trip is being described as “A Voyage for Oceans, A Voyage for Earth,” Moananuiākea is the name of the voyage. It also is the name for the vast Pacific Ocean that is a heritage region for Peoples who are Indigenous to the islands and continents that surround the ocean. One of the goals is to “ignite a movement of 10 million ‘planetary navigators’ who will pursue critical and inspiring ‘voyages’ to ensure a better future for the earth.”
Moani Heimuli is the captain of this leg of the voyage. She is the fourth generation of her family to be a traditional navigator.
“We’ve got four generations of them now, which is pretty amazing” Heimuli said. “Coming from Hawai’i, at one point in time. We never had any navigators here. We lost that art … to say today that we have four generations of navigatiors … we’re very, very proud of that.”
That traditional navigation is done without the use of any instruments. Using ancestral methodology re-introduced to Polynesian people by Master Navigator Mau Piailug of Micronesia, navigators are able to travel by using stars, animals, wave direction and winds.
“Once you get away from the land, it’s a lot easier because the horizon becomes your compass,” she said. “The land blocks swells and things like that. They come clean out on the deep sea. It’s really nice.”