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Hikianalia Update | Aug 28-29, 2018: Happy Birthday Kimo!

Hikianalia Update by Hye Jung Kim

Aug 28 Update: Stuck in the Clouds

We are still in the clouds! There is barely any wind, but when there is, it is coming from the north. So we believe that we have gone east, but we have not had any markers to check our heading during the 6 a.m. – 10 a.m. watch. We headed toward the star house La Malanai course over water at 2 knots.

During our 10 a.m. – 2 p.m. watch, the sun popped out and we able to confirm our eastern heading. We continued to have light winds so we ran the motors  to head along slowly. We finally got some sun throughout this watch and many crewmembers took the opportunity to shower in the added warmth. Keep in mind that we use ocean water to bathe while at sail – the water at this latitude is really cold and we all had a hard time with the cold water, but we were happy that we got clean! We went Lā Koʻolau course over water at 0-3 knots during this watch.

During our 2 p.m. – 6 p.m. watch, we held Lā Malanai course over water at an average of 4 knots. We relied heavily on the La malanai swells until we had the sun again.

All of our crew members are in good spirits and we typically spend most of our time laughing and sharing stories. We have so much snacks from everybody back home have maybe been snacking a bit much.

Aug 29 Update: Happy Birthday Uncle Kimo Lyman!

Today is ʻAnakala Kimo’s birthday! We celebratedwith cake that ʻAnakala Gary made. He made lemon cake and carrot cake and Lehua and Keli spent time decorating it. We had an amazing meal and are getting ready for the evening watches.

Since yesterday’s sunset, our 6 p.m. – 10 p.m. watch saw the stars Hōkūpaʻa (the North Star) and Na Hiku so they used it to check our headings. Then the sky closed up once again and we used the swells to check our heading. We sailed in the direction of the star house Lā Koʻolau at 5 knots speed.

Our 10 p.m. – 2 a.m. watch held star house ʻĀina Koʻolau at an average of 6 knots. We relied heavily on the swells and the wind since there was only a few minutes of the moon and the stars.

Our 2 a.m. – 6 a.m. watch also relied heavily on the swells and the wind since there were no markers present. It was a challenging set of watches to steer the waʻa, but we all made it through our watches ok. We were averaging 6 knots and heading La Koʻolau.

Our 6 a.m. – 10 a.m. watch steered using the swells as we were again socked in by clouds and could not see the sunrise nor the general area of the sun all throughout our watch. We had good wind so we were making pretty fast speeds averaging at 6 knots. Our watch held star house ʻAina Mmalanai course over water.

Our 10 a.m – 2 p.m. watch held ʻAina Koʻolau and averaged 7.5 knots. We used the swells, winds, and the sun during this watch.

Our 2 p.m. – 6 p.m. watch held the house of Lā Malanai and averaged a healthy 9 knots. There were consistent squalls coming through and they boosted our speed higher than average.

SB 72,
Hye Jung

“Hikianalia was built by the Okeanos Foundation”

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Hikianalia Update | August 31, 2018: Captain Lehua Kamalu

Today we are excited to hear from Lehua Kamalu, who is the Captain of Hikianalia during the Pacific crossing of the Alahula Kai O Maleka voyage to California.

On the 14th day of the voyage, she shares the good news that crewmembers have passed the halfway point to California – the crew tacked five days ago turning the canoe directly toward the continent.

The significant waypoint has been hard-earned however. “This year, has been particularly challenging as the high has moved around quite a bit causing sometimes winds where we didn’t expect them to be, or areas that are calm where we originally thought there would be wind,” said Kamalu.

There has also been poor visibility for five straight days shrouding the sun and stars making celestial navigation challenging. The northern latitude has also brought a drop in temperature.

“As you can see, the canoe itself is pretty exposed so we don’t like to go too far north into the cold – this is about as cold as we like to sail,” she said.

But the challenges, which were not unexpected, have not dampened the spirit of the crew, nor has it kept Kamalu from remaining focussed on the goal.

“We are planning on continuing this eastward tack for the next couple of days until we get closer to the coast of California where we hope to get some of the northerly, and northwesterly winds… to give us that last boost into San Francisco.”

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Hikianalia Update | Aug 26-27, 2018: Happy Birthday Keala!

Hikianalia Update by Hye Jung Kim

Aug 27 Update

Today is Keala’s birthday! ʻAnakala Gary baked a cake for Keala and, as with all the other meals, it was delicious.

As if they were invited to the party, we were visited in the evening by some naiʻa (dolphins) during our dinner – what a great dinner show indeed!

Our day continued with cloud coverage. During our 6 a.m. – 10 a.m. watch were able to check our heading because the sun peaked out for about 5 minutes. The entire rest of the day was in 100% cloud coverage and all of our watches had a difficult time checking heading. We steered with the swells the entire day and towards the end of the day, the wind died down so we started playing with the sails. It was a challenging day because the sails luffed every time we tried to point in the direction that we wanted to go to. So during our 2 p.m. – 6 p.m. watch, we had a few hours where we were headed to China (an exaggeration… for the most part) and we tried to correct it towards the end.

We hope that we are able to see some clues tonight to check our heading.

In the meantime, get excited… we have challenged each other to a haiku competition which will close in a few days and we’ll be sharing our top three entries.

Aug 28 Update

Happy to report that all crew members are healthy and happy.

We are still stuck in the cloudiness of it all. We have not been able to see any natural signs other than 2 seconds of the moon in our 10-2 watch. Our wind directions have changed so we tacked overnight. We are hoping to get a glimpse of the sun sometime today.

And yet, we are still in the clouds. There is barely any wind, but when there is, it is from the Northern direction. So we believe that we have gone east, but we have not had any markers to check our heading during the 6 a.m. – 10 a.m. watch. We went La Malanai course over water at 2 knots.

During our 10 p.m. – 2 p.m. watch, the sun popped out and we were able to see that we are heading in the general direction of east.

We had the sun all throughout this watch and many crew members were able to shower while we had the sunlight. The water is really cold and we all had a hard time with the cold water, but we were happy that we got clean! We went Lā Koʻolau course over water at 0-3 knots during this watch.

During our 2-6 watch, we held Lā Malanai course over water at an average of 4 knots. We relied heavily on the La malanai swells until we had the sun and then we went off of the sun for the rest of the watch. There were times during our watch when we had to make the code zero happy while trying to keep heading which was challenging.

All of our crew members are in good spirits and we always spend most of our time laughing and sharing stories. We have so much snacks from everybody back home that we have so many goodies to snack on and have been trying to stay away from the sugar for some time today. 😀

SB 72,
Hye Jung

“Hikianalia was built by the Okeanos Foundation”

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Hikianalia Video Update | August 28: Kalani & Matatini

Kalani, with the help of fellow crewmember Matatini, brings us todays video update on their 11th day of sailing from Hawaiʻi to California on the voyage known as Alahula Kai O Maleka. The crew has sailed north far enough that the navigation team has made the call to tack east toward the continent.

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Crew Blog | Hye Jung Kim: Anakala Gary

Crew Blog by Hye Jung Kim

It’s August 24th – we are currently on watch and everything is pretty uneventful. We are holding our heading and monitoring the swells. I come back and forth from the navigator’s standing area to the middle of the waʻa where I can check for speed. The hoe is down and the sails are trimmed to steer in the right direction.

Anakala Gary is reading his book. I am not sure what book it is but it looks kind of old and worn. It is the first time in a few days that I have seen anakala Gary sit down and rest for a bit. He is always busy in the galley preparing awesome meals and snacks for us to have. Always selfless, always smiling, always not taking credit for the delicious meals that we are so lucky to have.

I take a photo of him with the camera that I am holding. He has no idea that I am aiming my camera at him. He is immersed in his book and is hyper focused to fade away his surroundings. I think to myself that it must be a really good book. A few minutes later, he packs it away in his bucket that he has and begins to get busy again. Anakala Gary is in high demand as we are all in different stages of making the necklace from the gift that he gave us a few days ago. We all ask if we are ready for the next step and how to start the next step. He helps another few crewmembers and then recruits other crew members to help those who are just starting. He is such a patient teacher and all of us are incredibly grateful to have him.

After uncle checks on everybody and sees that I am just sitting and monitoring the weather, he says “come, I have something that you can do”. We sit down on the port side benches and he takes out his bucket. He takes out that book that he was reading earlier and opens it up to show me the pages. There are so many lines of dates that are written in the front few pages of the book. He has documented all of his travels since 1968. At the very end of the few pages, it lists “Honolulu to San Francisco”, the trip that we are currently on. Our crew is now part of his book. Written down in history of his travels. I feel very fortunate and grateful.

He tells me to document the trips that I go on to remember it when I get older. He says that he reflects on his trips by looking at the pages of his poetry book. He shares with me two poems. One is titled:

“The Night Has a Thousand Eyes” by Francis William Bourdillon

The night has a thousand eyes,
And the day but one;
Yet the light of the bright world dies
With one dying sun.

The mind has a thousand eyes,
And the heart but one;
Yet the light of a whole life dies
When love is done.

I feel so special that anakala Gary shared his story and his book with me. He told me that I could borrow his book anytime to read the poems.

Now a day later, I go to the galley and ask him if I can borrow his book. He opens his bucket and hands me the book, which is inside the ziplock. It is way to special for me to have in my hands and I bring it back into the hale so that it is shielded from the elements. I open up the ziplock and it smells like anakala Gary’s pipe. I carefully open it up to page 8 where the poem shared above is written. I check all the trips that he has listed and am ready to hear more stories about the trips that he has taken. Thank goodness we have more days on this waʻa! I have more time to hear his travel stories!

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Hikianalia Update | Aug 25, 2018: Navigation Update

Hikianalia Update by Hye Jung Kim

Aug 25 | AM Update

We had another good night and early morning. Our 6 p.m. – 10 p.m. and 2 a.m. – 6 a.m. watches held ʻĀkau heading over water and our 10 a.m. – 2 p.m. watch held Nā Leo Koʻolau for their watch.

Navigation Report:

At the beginning of the 6 p.m – 10 p.m watch, apprentice navigators Tamiko, Kalani, and I did a latitude check with Kamaka (Shaula) and Kapoho (Sargas). Kamaka is at declination 37 degrees, which means that the distance from Kamaka to the south pole is 90-37 = 53 degrees. Since we measured 17 degrees above the horizon, 53-17=36 degrees! Similar reasoning applies to measuring Kapoho at 11 degrees. Kapoho is at 43 degrees declination, which means 90-43=47 degrees above the south celestial pole. So since we measured 11 degrees, 47 – 11 = 36 degrees in latitude!

So after our night watches, we now are at a little over 37 degrees in latitude and are about 120 nautical miles due east of our reference course.

Remember you can always follow our progress in real-time on the live tracking map .

Aug 25 | PM Update

Today we caught a mahi at 9am and then another one in the afternoon.

During our 6 a.m. -10 a.m. watch, we used sunrise and altitude to check our headings. Two squalls came through and it was hard to see the sun in dark clouds. When the sun was too high, then the swells were used to check heading. We changed our head sail to jib #21 during the heavy winds. We held Nāleo Koʻolau over water during this watch and averaged 7 knots.

For our 10 a.m. – 2 p.m. watch, we held ʻĀkau course over water for their 4 hours at an average of 7 knots. We followed the wind, swells, and tried not to pass Haka because we have so much easting. The weather was nice and sunny for our watch.

For our 2 p.m. – 6 p.m. watch, we held Na Leo Koʻolau and with the leeway, we were heading Haka Koʻolau. So we gained a little bit of easting during the four hours. We used the swells until the sun was low enough for us to use to set heading. We averaged 7 knots of speed consistently throughout the day and made big progress north.

The temperature is continuing to drop as the crew puts on more and more layers. We had about half of the crew members were brave to shower today and the rest of us are waiting for sunnier days.

SB 72,
Hye Jung

“Hikianalia was built by the Okeanos Foundation”

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Hikianalia Update | Aug 24, 2018: Weather Change

Hikianalia Update by Hye Jung Kim

Aug 24 | AM Update

We had a pretty mellow night and the temperature dropped pretty drastically over the past few days. We are thinking that yesterday was our last day of showers, but we will see how much it warms up today.

Navigation Report:

Our 6 p.m. – 10 p.m. watch used the Jupiter setting, Hokupaʻa (north star) and Iwa KeliʻI to check headings and we were able to do a latitude check with Sagas and Shaura and we estimate to be at 35 degrees north. Our dead reckoning is off by a degree and we will keep our dead reckoning until we have another latitude check with Na Hiku using Hikukahi and Hikulua. Our heading for the four hours was Haka Koʻolau with one house leeway resulting in ʻĀkau heading.

Our 10 p.m. – 2 a.m. watch kept the same heading and they relied a lot on the swells and Hokupaʻa. During this watch the clouds rolled in and the winds died down. We had a harder time tonight pinpointing the course with the lack of clues.

Our 2 a.m. – 6 a.m. watch ranged from Nā Lani Koʻolau to Nā Leo Hoʻolua and we think that on average we held ʻĀkau resulting in Haka Hoʻolua course over water. We did not have much wind so we averaged 3 knots over the 4 hours. At sunrise, the horizon was covered with clouds so we were not able to check our heading.

Aug 24 | PM Update: Shifty Weather

Today, the winds died down as our 6 a.m. – 10 a.m. watch came on. It was raining and we were not going anywhere so we cleaned the deck and Keala got out his fishing pole and started fishing on the bow. Soon, he had an aku on his line and we documented the fish and checked stomach content. A few minutes after the fish was caught, we had winds again to get going. Everything was timed just right and it feels like mama Earth had a schedule in mind for us.

We started motoring a bit during our 6-10 watch. We were heading Manu Koʻolau and with the one house leeway drift, we were heading Noio Koʻolau over the water. We are slowly making progress eastward.

Our 10 a.m. – 2 p.m. watch checked heading using the swells and wind since the sun was too high for us to use. There were some squalls that came through during our 10-2 watch and it dropped the temperature drastically when the winds were coming through. We put up jib #12 inside of jib #33 to try to get a little bit more power from the very light winds that we have. Winds died in the morning so we motored for a little bit during this watch.

Our 2 p.m. – 6 p.m. watch averaged ʻĀkau, but the heading in the four hours changed drastically throughout the watch. The wind fluctuated from squall strength of 20+ knots down to nothing during the watch. It was hard to check heading as well because we could not even see the sun for more than half of the watch.

SB 72,
Hye Jung

“Hikianalia was built by the Okeanos Foundation”

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Crew Blog | Hye Jung Kim: Bring a Bucket

by Hye Jung Kim

Jason and Naʻalehu from ʻŌiwi TV told me to bring a bucket (to throw up in) into the hale where the media specialist does their work. I laughed, but knew that was an advice coming from their many legs of experiencing the waʻa in various conditions around the world.

Day one of our Alahula Kai o Maleka voyage, we departed the Marine Education and Training Center to Makapuʻu and then headed north from there. That evening, I was to process 8-10 photos to send back home via satellite wifi and that meant some time in the hale processing those photos.

I started to digitally process a few photos at a time at a time and I could feel in my stomach that I was about to get sick. I came out of the hale for air a few times and tried to go back and it just kept getting worse and worse with the rocking of the waʻa and myself trying to focus on the computer screen to process the photos and write about the day to report back home. I kept telling myself “This is day one, just getting started, you have to get used to this.” Thankfully, I was able to send the photos over and the PM update over to our office!

As soon as I walked out of the hale, I felt so sick… I knew I needed a bucket or needed to get to the stern real quick before I make a huge mess. Thankfully, I got to the stern in time for me to poke my head out toward the ocean instead of in the hull. That did not feel good at all, but I felt much better afterwards.

Day after day, I am learning more and more to listen to my body and take the time to prevent myself from getting too sick from staring at the screen. I have been spreading out my time in the hale so that I donʻt have a long section where I need to stay in the hale.

I have a deeper understanding and appreciation of all of those media specialists throughout the voyage. I am only doing a fraction of the work that they did regularly and I am slowly understanding how much work it takes in order for us to share this voyage with our supporters. What keeps me going strong is the fact that there are so many people back home and around the world who support us and it is our kuleana to share as much as we can and perhaps inspire change.

Our crew has bonded so tightly throughout the weeks of delay that we experienced, and that helped us have a smooth transition off of the land and into the deep blue. It is absolutely gorgeous here out in the ocean and we know that we will have our fair share of challenges ahead, but I know that our crew can handle anything that is given our way.

To all of our supporters back home, we are here out in the ocean enjoying each otherʻs presence and learning more about the nature because of the support that you folks give. Every moment, we remind ourselves of how lucky we are to be out here! Mahalo nunui for your support! Sending lots of aloha your way!

SB 72,
Hye Jung

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