Hōkūleʻa Update | Crew Outreach on Cocos Island

Aloha, this is Kalei Velasco here on Hōkūleʻa anchored over here at Direction Island in the Coco’s Keeling Island group. It’s about time for us to get out of here and get on the move and start making our way over to Mauritius. But before we go, I just want to get a quick recap of what we got to do while we were here.

It’s a pretty awesome, beautiful place. Day 1, we got to go on Direction Island. No one lives there but we got to know the locals pretty good, all of the manō, the iʻa, the naiʻa so much life, all the papaʻi and all kinds of animals here. It was just good to see that some place is still real nice and healthy. And then, learned a little bit about the history of this place, the battles that happened here with the world wars and it was Australia’s first victory at sea right here outside Direction Island.

After that, we got a chance to head over to Home Island, which is where everybody lives, the majority of the people, about five hundred people or so. It’s a Muslim community so we got to learn a little bit about the Muslim culture while we were there, interact with some of the community members and learn about how they came here and how they live, how they sustain themselves.

After that we hooked up with the local high school over on West Island. We got on the ferry and went across to the lagoon to West Island and got to meet with children at Coco’s Island District High School, and we had a great exchange with them, talked story, did some dances, did the haʻa and they had a blast. We had a blast getting to know them as well. So I wanted to say aloha to them, mahalo to them for having us, it was great to be in their home islands and be able to enjoy it.

Finally, today, we hung our sign up, over there, there’s a little pavilion, where all the boats that come to this area, they hang signs up that they’ve been here and we carved out a sign with Hōkūleʻa on it, along with Gershon II our escort, and hung it up under that pavilion. Also next to the pavilion, we planted some coconut trees, in the shape of a star compass, relative to this area, and also, left a pōhaku there from Noalolokai on Kauaʻi so pretty awesome, I think we’re ready to get going now and get on the move. Everyone is ready, spiritually, mentally, physically. The canoe is ready. We made a bunch of little repairs, especially to some of our safety gear, that we needed to make use of over this past leg and time to go. So check us out on hokulea.com, and keep following us, keep sending us your aloha and your prayers, a hui hou.

Please help keep us sailing for future generations. All contributions make a difference for our voyage. Mahalo nui loa!