IM ON A BOAT!

Today many people fantasize about traveling somewhere on an expensive, elegant yacht, but imagine spending a week on a canoe to travel somewhere like the ancient Polynesians did.

I believe Snake Ah Hee's philosophy, "Once you go on the canoe, because it's so small, you try to make it like one family" very vital to a happy, successful trip.

Canoes aren't that big. Every two people shares a sleeping area of about 6 feet in length and 3 feet in width. How can they possibly fit? One person stands watch while the other sleeps. Everyone has 4 hour watching shifts with 8 hours rest in between.

Ever woke up in the middle of the night because you had to go to the bathroom? Try going on a canoe.

Bathrooms are located at each end of the Hokule'a (canoe). That's right you just urinate in the ocean. Don't worry about falling overboard though because first you must hook yourself up to a safety harness.

NO ONE LOOK!

Everyone on the boat should respect each others privacy. When someone is going to the bathroom or bathing, it's common courtesy to look away or move out of the area; give the person some space.

Are we there yet?

Voyaging by sea can take many weeks. Plenty of water is stored to sustain the crew members, and rain water is collected for bathing and cooking, but what else is there to do besides the obvious steering, handling the sails, cooking, ect. ?

Most crew members in their spare time

• read
• write in journals
• make music
• or RELAX!
  

I think being out on a boat for several weeks would be a fun experience. You would learn to have fun in other ways just sit back and enjoy nature. Often times we are so caught up in electronics and work that we don't have time to just relax. Don't you agree ?

Lost in the Stars

The simulation using the Hawaiian compass was quite an experience. I never really thought about how people used to navigate, I'm used to just hooking up the GPS or getting a ride from someone who knows where their going. The fact that the Polynesians had all the stars memorized is amazing. I thought it was hard to memorize the one compass, but at the end of the simulation Kumu told us there was actually 4 compasses, one for each season!!!

The hardest challenge my group faced was memorizing the stars. We only knew half of them which made it very hard to locate the different islands. I don't know how the ancient Polynesians did it. Even if we knew the names of the stars, i don't think it would be much help if we were actually out on a canoe because it'd be hard to pick out the one star, out of the other million in the sky, that would lead us in the right direction. Other factors that would probably throw us off course would be storms or cloudy skies. Then we'd be in trouble!

The activity definitely helped me understand the Polynesians more. Their way of using and understanding nature is amazing. It's unbelievable how they discovered and settled all the different islands. They truly are masters of the sea!