At
dawn on October 8, 1999, crew member Max Yarawamai, a lookout posted
at the bow of the voyaging canoe Hokule'a, sighted Rapa Nui (Easter
Island)--a speck on the horizon, visible through a small hole in a
wall of clouds. The canoe landed the next day, completing an
amazing, improbable 19-day, 1,450-mile voyage from Mangareva to the
most remote and isolated island in Polynesia. The twelve-member crew
under navigators Nainoa Thompson, Chad Baybayan, and Bruce
Blankenfeld had expected to sail against the wind for thirty-five
days, navigating by celestial bodies and ocean swells and searching
thousands of square miles of trackless ocean for a tiny island.
Instead, blessed by favorable winds--a gift of their ancestors--they
sailed directly east toward Rapa Nui for most of the way, and
sighted the island on the first pass.
Landfall
at Rapa Nui brought closure to Hokule'a's twenty-five years of
exploration and rediscovery of Polynesia which began in 1975, with
the launching of the canoe at Hakipu'u-Kualoa in Kane'ohe Bay,
O'ahu.
At
dawn on October 8, 1999, crew member Max Yarawamai, a lookout posted
at the bow of the voyaging canoe Hokule'a, sighted Rapa Nui (Easter
Island)--a speck on the horizon, visible through a small hole in a
wall of clouds. The canoe landed the next day, completing an
amazing, improbable 19-day, 1,450-mile voyage from Mangareva to the
most remote and isolated island in Polynesia. The twelve-member crew
under navigators Nainoa Thompson, Chad Baybayan, and Bruce
Blankenfeld had expected to sail against the wind for thirty-five
days, navigating by celestial bodies and ocean swells and searching
thousands of square miles of trackless ocean for a tiny island.
Instead, blessed by favorable winds--a gift of their ancestors--they
sailed directly east toward Rapa Nui for most of the way, and
sighted the island on the first pass.