our new hawaiian brother @kanehunamoku
Since my earliest memories I have had an outright hatred of mosquitoes. This feeling has not been returned by winged tormentors who have always seemed to find me exceedingly delicious. They have hounded me across my entire existence and by the time we left Raro I had spent at least one night sweating through my sheets counting over two hundred bites on my left leg alone. My tormentors unmerciless in their persistence continued to test my fabric shield at every opportunity every night. This led to me feeling somewhat fatigued and semi feverish before we even left land for this voyage.
Its only over the last day or so that I’ve been able to start feeling myself again and begin to enjoy the rhythms of daily life on the Vaka. Its definitely been a quick learning curve as there unfortunately wasn’t an opportunity for me to sail on Mama Maru until we were underway. It makes me even more appreciative for the training that Kanehunamoku and the other waa organizations that have nurtured me the last couple of years in helping me to pick up on how to help crew capably in an unfamiliar environment.
Its been an incredible amount of new information in a very compacted amount of time that far spans the boundaries of just voyaging. I feel like I’ve learned much more about Cook Island Maori culture considering how little I truly understood before stepping on the plane just a couple of weeks ago. As we creep up closer and closer the equator I’m reminded how utterly blessed I am to be here to share this experience. I can’t wait to return to my home islands to introduce my new friends to my ‘ohana.
A hui hou, malama pono.
