Posted on: Sunday, October 17, 2004
OUR HONOLULU
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By Bob Krauss
Advertiser Columnist
Pohoiki, Hawai'i — Sailing-canoe lag, like jet lag, takes about 24 hours to get over. I flew from Honolulu to join the canoe at palm-shaded Pohoiki Bay on the sun-drenched Puna Coast of Hawai'i. The canoe is Kamali'i o ke Kai, a graceful outrigger 42 feet long, rigged with a sail and crewed by Hawaiians under Mike Kincaid, whose mother came from Ni'ihau.
At Pohoiki, the rush of surf on black lava sounds like the roar of downtown traffic. I was conspicuous in long pants. A bedroll under my arm, all I possessed in a knapsack on my back, I felt awkward and out of place in an amphibious world light-years removed from the city room of a newspaper.
It was like dropping in on the court of Kamehameha 200 years ago, when he had decided to load up his canoe and take a pleasure cruise to the other side of the island.
Like the chiefs of old, Kincaid sails with a chiefly 'ohana and a tested crew of deep-sea voyagers. There's his brother, Jim, and Tom Boomer from Maui, owner of the escort boat, a brand new twin-outboard, 27-foot Hawaiian Catamaran constructed on Moloka'i. Also there: Joe Morance, Dave Komine, Matt Buckman and Nai'ilima Ahuna.
They talk in pidgin, constantly give each other free advice, and they swim like fish. Each seems to know instinctively what needs to be done without being told, and to possess a graduate degree in tying knots, putting up a tent, keeping a boat off the rocks and stowing coolers in impossible places. It's no wonder the old Hawaiians were healthy, because traveling by canoe is hard work; loading and unloading supplies, hauling the canoe up on the beach and carrying it into the water, cooking, cleaning up.
For this crew, the sailing canoe is a window into their culture, and it's not free. The voyage cost Kincaid $2,000, not counting what he paid for the canoe and Tom Boomer's investment in his escort boat. None of the crew took a salary.
Pohoiki today is a launching ramp for fishing boats and a popular hangout for surfers. One thing that hasn't changed from the days of Kamehameha is the eternal embrace of the restless ocean and black lava shore, the poetry of palm fronds against the sky and the colors of the sunset.
From then it was pure adventure. Surf booms off the black lava bluffs of Puna in blinding white explosions. The breeze picked up and the canoe came alive, clicking along at 6 knots. The shore changed from green tropical jungle to grim bleak lava.
Counting the layers of lava along the cliff shore was like voyaging into eternity, because the bottom layers flowed into the sea thousands of years before humans set foot on the Islands. The black top layer from the ongoing eruption looks like a frozen waterfall at the edge of the sea. It represents only a split second in the history of the seaside cliff. We sailed by black sand beaches under the cliffs that have never known a footprint.
After 30 miles, we ducked behind a finger of black lava and beached the boats at Keauhou Landing, a tiny green Eden in the vast desolation of Kilauea Volcano's backside. A spring keeps the inlet almost fresh. No road leads here, only a trail from above used by teams that hike in to check on nesting hawksbill and green sea turtles.
Keauhou Landing is part of the national park system, one reason it remains a special place where Hawaiians can reconnect with the 'aina. It deserves care and protection.
The trade wind had kicked up by the time we loaded and launched the next morning. The canoe took off like a jet, with the wind at its back. While we in the escort boat were exploring some white sand beaches farther on, a message crackled over the radio from the canoe far ahead: "Close up. We're on the red line."
The red line is the edge of danger. Boomer opened up his outboards and we plunged into the waves. For the next three hours, I was sopping wet. By the time we came up with the canoe, she was averaging 13 knots and doing 19 down waves in gusts of wind. A busted boom on the sail, a broken steering paddle and the canoe would have flipped over.
It was extreme sailing and executed superbly, exactly what the voyagers had hoped for. On the Ellis Expedition in 1973, we learned that Hawaiians in the old days didn't sail around South Point from Kona. On this voyage we discovered why. Coming around the point into the wind in that rough water would be foolhardy in an outrigger canoe.
On the Kona side, the water calms. We towed the canoe into Miloli'i, the last fishing village, and unloaded at the little pier where Sarah Kahele sat watching kids dive into the water. Willy Kaupiko, owner of the Miloli'i store, invited us to spend the night under his corrugated iron and thatch pavilion.
The gas pumps in front of the store are idle since they started pumping sea water. Willy leases the store to an Italian haole, Tom Garibaldi, who has turned it into a children's community center. Teenagers sit on the lanai and play video games.
That night, our expedition members looked like corpses on a Civil War battlefield as we slept on the termite-eaten picnic tables under the corrugated iron roof. The next morning we posed by Miloli'i's village sign before setting out for Kailua, where we boarded a plane for home.
Kincaid said outrigger canoe sailing is catching on as a local sport. There are about a dozen active canoes that race regularly, and some 1,000 interested sailors. He said his next voyage will be around Kaho'olawe.
Reach Bob Krauss at 525-8073.
Kincaid, president of the Hawaiian Sailing Canoe Association, has been making these voyages around the islands for 20 years to recapture his Hawaiian heritage. But he had never sailed around South Point, notorious for rough water. He invited Nakila Steele and me to join the expedition.
Mike Kincaid, at the steering paddle, guides his 42-foot outrigger sailing canoe Kamali'i o ke Kai. He has been voyaging around the Islands for 20 years, but had never sailed around South Point, notorious for rough water.
The expedition camped overnight at Miloli'i on the South Kona coast. In back, from left, are crew members Jim Kincaid and David Komine. In front, Mike Kincaid, guests Bob Krauss and Nakila Steele, and Nai'ilima Ahuna of Miloli'i.
After a night on the hard lava, I switched to shorts and my canoe lag disappeared. The ago-old routine began: load the boats, pray for a successful voyage and launch the canoe.
From an 'ahi caught off the Puna coast, Joe Morance of Kaua'i prepared sashimi on a driftwood log at Keauhou Landing.
I had no idea such a place existed, so isolated and unexpected — an improbable miniature harbor for the outrigger canoe that can land on the beach. There are a few lonely coconut palms, a thicket of hau, some sturdy noni trees and many fat kolea that became very irate when we set up camp on the mossy lava.
The three-day adventure began with a launch at Pohoiki Bay in Puna. The canoe was accompanied by a new 27-foot Hawaiian catamaran escort boat.
