As Hui Nalu Canoe Club's most venerable women paddlers began the final leg of the club's Herculean three-day, 130-plus-mile commemorative journey around the island, Reney Ching couldn't help but keep one eye on the sky.

It took nothing less than Hui Nalu's 100th anniversary celebration to nudge Ching from a 20-year retirement from paddling. It would take something even more significant to assure her that the massive undertaking of commemoration and service was indeed blessed.

Ching, a former club president, was part of the 50-55 crew that paddled the final return leg of a journey that began Saturday morning at Maunalua Bay in Hawai'i Kai.

Each of the 19 legs was dedicated to a prominent figure in Hui Nalu's century-long history. The final leg paid tribute to Myron "Pinky" Thompson, the former Bishop Estate trustee and champion of Native Hawaiian causes, who died in 2001.

"I always thought of Pinky as a bird," said Ching, 52. "And I thought it would make our day if he showed up along the way."

Just before the crew reached 'Aina Haina, a pair of manu o ku (white terns) circled playfully above the canoe.

"That was him," Ching said. "That was Pinky coming by to check on us."

Thompson's daughter, Lita Blankenfeld, a longtime paddler and wife of club president Bruce Blankenfeld, paddled the final leg.

Many Hui Nalu members believe that several of the club's departed leaders were present, in the form of their 'aumakua, throughout the journey.

When the freshman women's crew passed Kualoa on Saturday, for example, it was carefully observed by a sea turtle that Ching believes was the late Kala Kukea, the renown waterman and firefighter.

"That was just like him," Ching said, "always checking up to see how we're doing."

The crew also encountered a shark, often associated with Sammy "Steamboat" Mokuahi.

About 200 of the club's 340 members participated in the voyage, with specific age-group crews manning each leg according to their ability as well as the demands of the course. Other members took part in three special community service projects intended to further the club's long-held missions of protecting the environment and perpetuating Native Hawaiian culture and traditions.

As part of the commemorative voyage, Hui Nalu volunteers restored a coral wall at an ancient Hawaiian fishpond in He'eia, cleaned the beach at Nanakuli Beach Park, and removed two tons of invasive, non-native seaweed from Maunalua Bay.

"Everybody was really excited to do this," Bruce Blankenfeld said. "They worked really hard to be where they had to be, and it all worked out perfectly."

Blankenfeld said he was especially grateful to longtime paddlers from Kane'ohe, Kahana, Mokule'ia and La'ie who helped Hui Nalu paddlers navigate unfamiliar and potentially treacherous stretches of water.

"The support and aloha we got from the community was unbelievable," he said. "We relied on local knowledge to help us along and keep us safe. Leeward Kai and families in Nanakuli hosted us and were so happy to be a part of what we were doing."

Hui Nalu was founded in 1908 by Duke Kahanamoku, Knute Cottrell and Ken Winter and has grown into one of the most popular and successful canoe clubs in Hawai'i.

Author Marion Lyman-Mersereau, 55, is one of three surviving women's paddlers — along with Lita Blankenfeld and Ann Yuen — who took part in a 1972 race around O'ahu. Hui Nalu placed first among the four competing teams; it was the last time before this weekend that the club attempted such a feat.

Lyman-Mersereau, who steered the final leg, said the weekend's festivities reminded her of that epic race, as well as of the colorful cast of characters who helped to shape the club.

As the canoe passed 'Aina Haina, Lyman-Mersereau and the crew scattered flowers near the squid hole where Kukea once dived, in clear view of Kukea's home.

As they approached Wailupe, they also scattered flowers for Myron Thompson in waters facing his former home.

On the final left-hand turn back to Maunalua Bay, the crew caught a lively 2-foot wave that carried it the final quarter-mile back to its home beach.

To Ching, who had searched the skies for signs of Thompson, it was one final, gentle push from Thompson and Kukea.

In fact, as Blankenfeld explained to the more than 100 club members who gathered in prayer after the completion of the event, the three-day commemoration was a way to reconnect to the past while looking ahead at what the organization can accomplish in fellowship with other canoe clubs and with the community at large.

"This is a celebration of 100 years of our club, but the main thing is that it is also a celebration of what all the clubs around the state are doing for our culture and our community," Blankenfeld said.

The message wasn't lost of 8-year-old Kanai Ho, the youngest paddler to participate in the weekend voyage.

Ho said he was a tad scared when he and the rest of his boys crew took to the water, but "then it got kind of fun."

As part of his preparations for the trip, Ho and his crewmates were instructed to learn all they could about Clorinda Lucas, the person to whom their leg was dedicated.

Lucas, hanai granddaughter of Sanford Dole, is believed to be the first person of Hawaiian descent to earn a degree in social work (at what is now Columbia University in New York) and once served as director of public child welfare.

And, as Ho learned from his mother, Cathy Kam-Ho, the respected community leader also let Hui Nalu store canoes in her back yard.

"The more people understood about what we were trying to accomplish with all of this, trying to get a deeper appreciation about where we came from, the more fun it was for them," Blankenfeld said. "When you know your past, the path going forward becomes more meaningful."