Hokule’a leaves a mark as it sails around the world

A TRADITIONAL Polynesian voyaging canoe has returned to Honolulu as it completes the first-ever round-the-world journey by a vessel of its kind.
The boat, the Hokule’a, took three years to circumnavigate the globe.
Its crew navigated without modern instruments, using only the stars, wind and ocean swells as guides – doing as their forefathers did hundreds of years ago.
Hawaii celebrated the Hokule’a’s homecoming on Honolulu’s Magic Island peninsula on Saturday.
Built in the 1970s, it travelled 40,000 nautical miles (74,000km) on this latest trip, known as the Malama Honua voyage, meaning “to care for our Island Earth”.
Its aim has been to spread a message about ocean conservation, sustainability and protecting indigenous cultures.
“Hokule’a has sparked a reawakening of Hawaiian culture, language, identity and revitalised voyaging and navigation traditions throughout the Pacific Ocean,” said the voyage organisers on their website.
Naalehu Anthony, crew member and chief executive director of Hawaiian media company Oiwi TV which documented the trip, told a Hawaii radio station that wherever they docked, people welcomed them with a Hawaiian “Aloha” greeting.
“One of the things I really admire about the voyage, looking back on it, is that we always asked the first nations peoples from these different places for permission to come.
“We never said we are coming. We said, would it be OK for us to and honour the native people of this place,” he said.
The voyage, he added, had been an “opportunity to celebrate native knowledge” and look at how “we are more common than we are different”.

• Source: http://www.bbc.com/news