Updated at 10:55 p.m., Sunday, July 1, 2007

Hokulea back home from 5-month voyage

Advertiser Staff

The Hokulea is steadied by a dock worker as the canoe is lowerd onto the dock after it was carried atop an NYK Shipping Lines container, the Settsu Panama from Yokohama, Japan. The Hokulea sailed to the marshall Island, Micronesia and Japan, starting that journey on Jan. 13, 2007. Deborah Booker | The Honolulu Advertiser

The voyaging canoe Hokule'a came home today, offloaded from an NYK container ship that brought the canoe from Yokohama, Japan, after its five-month voyage from Hawai'i through Micronesia and through the islands of Japan.

The canoe arrived at Pier 1 at about 1 a.m. and the off-loading, was done at about 8:30 a.m.

About 35 people, crewmembers and members of the news media, were on hand.

"She's home, back in the water, safe and sound," said Nainoa Thompson, president of the Polynesian Voyaging Society. "The voyage was extraordinary."

Thompson estimated the voyage, which was 149 days at sea, covered 15,000 kilometers. He described the voyage as "the most dangerous and risky" yet undertaken because of the threat of typhoons in the Western Pacific.