In what officials said was a precedent-setting venture, medical teams from the nonprofit Aloha Medical Mission have been visiting the same areas as the Hawaiian sailing canoes over the past month to bring supplies and treatment to the Micronesian Islands.

Four teams, each with a half-dozen volunteer doctors, nurses and lay people, timed their visit to Pohnpei, Chuuk and Yap starting in late February to be on hand when the sailing canoes arrived.

Each team stayed for about a week and established a relationship with a medical clinic in Micronesia that will continue in the future, said Butch Dela Cruz, executive director of the Aloha Medical Mission, which for almost two decades has sponsored similar missions to Asia from Hawai'i.