Category Archives: Featured

Vaka Taumako Project Awarded Grand Prize

The International Maritime Film Festival in Bucksport Maine recently awarded “We, the Voyagers” Parts 1 and 2 its Grand Prize for feature films.

These 2 films, each about 55 minutes long, were produced by the Pacific Traditions Society, headquartered on Kaua`i, to record the efforts of Taumako people in the Solomon Islands to preserve and teach their ancient voyaging culture.

Nga Taumako may be the only Polynesians who still know how to build and sail canoes like the ones their ancestors used to explore and colonize the Pacific.

Part 1, Our Vaka, documents the construction of these canoes, which, unlike Hokule’a and other modern replicas, incorporate only traditional plant materials.

Part 2, Our Moana, recounts a voyage and includes a section on some of the ancient navigational methods used by Taumako voyagers. Both films are available for viewing online at www.vaka.org . They are also accessible through the Vaka Taumako Facebook site .

Pacific Paddler is A MAGAZINE FOR PADDLERS BY PADDLERS: to bring the excitement of outrigger paddling to a larger audience. Pacific Paddler covers all facets of paddling and outrigger racing including OC6, OC1, OC2, V1, O6, V6, OC4, SUP, Surfski, Canoe Surfing and more from all around the world! Our Focus is on paddling and the active lifestyle that goes with it. Paddling is a sport for everyone, any gender any age from 6 to 86. We want to encourage novice paddlers to join clubs and older paddlers to try it out.

http://pacificpaddler.com

Which OC1 Do You Prefer?

kai waʻa Ares OC1 Or Puakea Kahele OC1?

Surfing OC1 off Popoia Island State Bird Sanctuary and Kailua Beach on the windward side of Oahu, Hawaii. Which canoe do you like best?

Pacific Paddler is A MAGAZINE FOR PADDLERS BY PADDLERS: to bring the excitement of outrigger paddling to a larger audience. Pacific Paddler covers all facets of paddling and outrigger racing including OC6, OC1, OC2, V1, O6, V6, OC4, SUP, Surfski, Canoe Surfing and more from all around the world! Our Focus is on paddling and the active lifestyle that goes with it. Paddling is a sport for everyone, any gender any age from 6 to 86. We want to encourage novice paddlers to join clubs and older paddlers to try it out.

http://pacificpaddler.com

Racing Unlimited Canoes in Hawaii?

An interview with Jim Foti about the future of racing unlimited canoes in Hawaii.

Pacific Paddler is A MAGAZINE FOR PADDLERS BY PADDLERS: to bring the excitement of outrigger paddling to a larger audience. Pacific Paddler covers all facets of paddling and outrigger racing including OC6, OC1, OC2, V1, O6, V6, OC4, SUP, Surfski, Canoe Surfing and more from all around the world! Our Focus is on paddling and the active lifestyle that goes with it. Paddling is a sport for everyone, any gender any age from 6 to 86. We want to encourage novice paddlers to join clubs and older paddlers to try it out.

http://pacificpaddler.com

2019 Molokai Hoe Canoe Race With Jim Foti

The Moloka’i Hoe is an annual outrigger canoe race between the islands of Molokai and Oahu, Hawaii. The race is one of Hawaii’s largest annual sporting events, drawing participants from Hawaii and the U.S. mainland as well as internationally.

Pacific Paddler is A MAGAZINE FOR PADDLERS BY PADDLERS: to bring the excitement of outrigger paddling to a larger audience. Pacific Paddler covers all facets of paddling and outrigger racing including OC6, OC1, OC2, V1, O6, V6, OC4, SUP, Surfski, Canoe Surfing and more from all around the world! Our Focus is on paddling and the active lifestyle that goes with it. Paddling is a sport for everyone, any gender any age from 6 to 86. We want to encourage novice paddlers to join clubs and older paddlers to try it out.

http://pacificpaddler.com

We the Voyagers: Lata’s Children (Matou Nga MokuPuna o Lata)

Friday, January 31
5:30-8:30pm
Atherton Hālau

We the Voyagers: Lata’s Children (Matou Nga MokuPuna o Lata)
a two part documentary film series.

Details:
This two-part film series features the living crew of Polynesian voyagers of Taumako, Solomon Islands, who share their history, motivations, and skills through storytelling, canoe building, and wayfinding. They use only the designs, materials, and methods of their culture-hero Lata, who built the first voyaging canoe (vaka) and navigated to distant islands. We invite everyone to see this film and reconnect with their ancestors and sustainable lifeways. This is a story of the real Moana. Each film is 57 minutes long and there will be a short intermission between the two screenings. The film is hosted by Dr. Marianne “Mimi” George, anthropologist, sailor, and writer specializing in voyaging cultures.

Online Registration Required:
General: $10
Youth: $7
Members receive 10% off tickets

5:30pm Registration
6:00pm Part 1 Screening
7:00pm Short Intermission
7:15pm Part 2 Screening

Part 1. We, the Voyagers: Our Vaka
We, the Polynesian voyagers of Taumako, Solomon Islands, share our history, motivations, and skills through storytelling, canoe building, and wayfinding. We recall our ancestors, who made the greatest of human migrations. We use only the designs, materials, and methods of our culture-hero Lata, who built the first voyaging canoe (vaka) and navigated to distant islands. When Europeans took over, we became isolated. To regain sustainability, our most experienced navigator, Te Aliki Kaveia, led us in planting gardens, feeding workers, making rope from plants, weaving and sewing sails, protecting our trees, adzing parts for voyaging canoes, and lashing them together. Kaveia enlisted an anthropologist to help us make this film. After he died in 2009, we built a vaka. Te Aliki Holani, our new Lata, prepared us for an open-ocean voyage. From the living story of Lata we learn that everyone is welcome in Lata’s crew, and that we can avoid making key mistakes as we strive to connect with long-lost family and new friends on faraway shores.

Part 2. We, the Voyagers: Our Moana
In our isolated Polynesian community, we live the story of our ancestral culture-hero Lata. To make a voyage, Lata welcomes men, women, and children as crew, including hard workers with skills and applicants of dubious character. Our community blesses the vessel and sailors, and we learn how to sail in Lata’s arms. We find our way in the open ocean by interacting with patterns of winds, waves, stars, and other signs that our ancestors show us when we need them. We arrive at islands and learn what happened to family members since the last voyage some generations earlier. We reconcile, reaffirm our love for each other, and look to our future together.

Marianne “Mimi” George
Dr. Mimi George is an anthropologist, sailor, and writer who specializes in voyaging cultures. Before the Vaka Taumako Project, she documented voyaging traditions of islanders in New Ireland, Papua New Guinea, and Siberian Yupik Eskimos on the Alaskan and Russian sides of the Bering Strait. Her research voyages have used ancient polar technology, and the early nineteenth-century European technique of wintering-over in a sailboat frozen in the sea ice of Antarctica. In the Vaka Taumako Project, she studies Polynesians building vessels and making voyages using ancient technology, materials, tools, and navigation methods. Mimi made 25 inter-island voyages in the Santa Cruz Islands, and one voyage from Duffs through Vanuatu, either under the sailing direction of Te Aliki Kaveia or with him on board.

Pacific Paddler is A MAGAZINE FOR PADDLERS BY PADDLERS: to bring the excitement of outrigger paddling to a larger audience. Pacific Paddler covers all facets of paddling and outrigger racing including OC6, OC1, OC2, V1, O6, V6, OC4, SUP, Surfski, Canoe Surfing and more from all around the world! Our Focus is on paddling and the active lifestyle that goes with it. Paddling is a sport for everyone, any gender any age from 6 to 86. We want to encourage novice paddlers to join clubs and older paddlers to try it out.

http://pacificpaddler.com

Molokai Hoe Canoe Race With Jim Foti

The Moloka’i Hoe is an annual outrigger canoe race between the islands of Molokai and Oahu, Hawaii. The race is one of Hawaii’s largest annual sporting events, drawing participants from Hawaii and the U.S. mainland as well as internationally.

Pacific Paddler is A MAGAZINE FOR PADDLERS BY PADDLERS: to bring the excitement of outrigger paddling to a larger audience. Pacific Paddler covers all facets of paddling and outrigger racing including OC6, OC1, OC2, V1, O6, V6, OC4, SUP, Surfski, Canoe Surfing and more from all around the world! Our Focus is on paddling and the active lifestyle that goes with it. Paddling is a sport for everyone, any gender any age from 6 to 86. We want to encourage novice paddlers to join clubs and older paddlers to try it out.

http://pacificpaddler.com

Vaka Taumako Project Coming To Palace Theater 2020

This two-part film series features the living crew of Polynesian voyagers of Taumako, Solomon Islands, who share their history, motivations, and skills through storytelling, canoe building, and wayfinding.

They use only the designs, materials, and methods of their culture-hero Lata, who built the first voyaging canoe (vaka) and navigated to distant islands.

We invite everyone to see this film and reconnect with their ancestors and sustainable lifeways. This is a story of the real Moana. Each film is 57 minutes long and there will be a short intermission between the two screenings. The film is hosted by Dr. Marianne “Mimi” George, anthropologist, sailor, and writer specializing in voyaging cultures.

 

Pacific Paddler is A MAGAZINE FOR PADDLERS BY PADDLERS: to bring the excitement of outrigger paddling to a larger audience. Pacific Paddler covers all facets of paddling and outrigger racing including OC6, OC1, OC2, V1, O6, V6, OC4, SUP, Surfski, Canoe Surfing and more from all around the world! Our Focus is on paddling and the active lifestyle that goes with it. Paddling is a sport for everyone, any gender any age from 6 to 86. We want to encourage novice paddlers to join clubs and older paddlers to try it out.

http://pacificpaddler.com

The Gorge Outrigger Canoe Race, July 2019, Stevenson, Washington

The Gorge Outrigger Canoe Race is a 2 day paddling event featuring OC6 races, clinics and camping. Paddlers gather from British Columbia, Washington, Oregon and California to celebrate the culture of canoe paddling and years of friendship.

Pacific Paddler is A MAGAZINE FOR PADDLERS BY PADDLERS: to bring the excitement of outrigger paddling to a larger audience. Pacific Paddler covers all facets of paddling and outrigger racing including OC6, OC1, OC2, V1, O6, V6, OC4, SUP, Surfski, Canoe Surfing and more from all around the world! Our Focus is on paddling and the active lifestyle that goes with it. Paddling is a sport for everyone, any gender any age from 6 to 86. We want to encourage novice paddlers to join clubs and older paddlers to try it out.

http://pacificpaddler.com

2019 PAOPAO 9-Man Outrigger Race, Oceanside, CA

The PAOPAO Outrigger Race is a 20-Mile, 9-Man Outrigger race hosted by Oceanside Outrigger Canoe Club every August. A Southern California Outrigger Racing Association (SCORA) race, PAOPAO Outrigger Race begins from just outside the mouth of Oceanside Harbor.  The course offers a variety of conditions for crews including “uphill”, into the swell and wind, and finishing with a long down wind leg offering surfing with the swell and wind wave.

https://oceansideoutrigger.org/

http://www.imuaoutrigger.com/

Featured photo credit: Chris & Cody Silvester.

Pacific Paddler is A MAGAZINE FOR PADDLERS BY PADDLERS: to bring the excitement of outrigger paddling to a larger audience. Pacific Paddler covers all facets of paddling and outrigger racing including OC6, OC1, OC2, V1, O6, V6, OC4, SUP, Surfski, Canoe Surfing and more from all around the world! Our Focus is on paddling and the active lifestyle that goes with it. Paddling is a sport for everyone, any gender any age from 6 to 86. We want to encourage novice paddlers to join clubs and older paddlers to try it out.

http://pacificpaddler.com

Film Series | We, the Voyagers: Lata’s Children

Announcing two screenings of our just completed film series, We, the Voyagers: Lata’s Children.

We are now welcoming invitations to screen the films at paddling and sailing events and for groups throughout Hawaii and world-wide. contact vakataumako@gmail.com, see vakataumako on Facebook and www.vaka.org.

UPDATE: On Thursday, 8 August, the Pacific Traditions Society will screen part 1 of the “We, the Voyagers” series. The show will begin at 6:00 pm at Kaua`i Community College’s Fine Arts Auditorium.  The following Thursday, 15 August, part 2 of the series will be shown at 6:30 pm. in the same facility. Both shows last about an hour, and are FREE and open to all. Try come!

Pacific Paddler is A MAGAZINE FOR PADDLERS BY PADDLERS: to bring the excitement of outrigger paddling to a larger audience. Pacific Paddler covers all facets of paddling and outrigger racing including OC6, OC1, OC2, V1, O6, V6, OC4, SUP, Surfski, Canoe Surfing and more from all around the world! Our Focus is on paddling and the active lifestyle that goes with it. Paddling is a sport for everyone, any gender any age from 6 to 86. We want to encourage novice paddlers to join clubs and older paddlers to try it out.

http://pacificpaddler.com