Bikini - their home

Bikinians leaving their home in 1946...

From the video:  World of Discovery - Bikini: Forbidden Paradise
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ehjy0NeoB44

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ehjy0NeoB44https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ehjy0NeoB44

Sail shape!

Kiribati Parliament house

 Nice sail shape and canoe house motifs to the buildings!

GoPro and Endless Barrels...

Again, this may be a bit off topic.  But check out these endless barrels - that's sustainability! 

GoPro: Kilometer Barrels With Benji Brand - GoPro of the World June Winner
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z2eE08eZUTw

"Published on Jul 26, 2014

Benji Brand scores endless barrels at Namibia's fabled Skeleton Bay and takes home $1000, a GoPro HERO3+ Black Edition, and a year subscription to Surfline"

And here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gm7eT0MGt2Y

is GoPro: Endless Barrels - GoPro of the Winter 2013-14 powered by Surfline

Aren't GoPro cameras simply amazing!

The "New Tack" works...

Good results working with the "new tack" mock-up rig this weekend!  There's a new Page I've put up on it - A Working Crabclaw Sail:
http://starrigging.blogspot.com/p/a-working-cr.html

I'm happy enough now with this rig that I'd use it tomorrow if I could build a new boat!  That's all I can ask.  The ancients have already done it all for me!  All I ever needed was a way of short-handing the rig.  I'm ready to go sailing now!

Mau and Hokule'a

A nice depiction of Mau Piailug found at the Hokulea.com site:
http://www.hokulea.com/crew-blog-michelle-knoetgen-sailing-into-the-future-primal/

Students of the POW! WOW! School of Art/808 Urban painted a mural of Papa Mau Piailug in Kaka‘ako on O‘ahu to change the way people see their environment. Painting by Kamea Hadar, 808 Urban, Fitted; Image Courtesy of 808 Urban.

BTW, here is a good page on Mau from the Polynesian Voyaging Society:
http://pvs.kcc.hawaii.edu/index/founder_and_teachers/mau.html

Evolution of Pacific Culture

Published on May 18, 2012

Video 06 of the Introduction to Ethnobotany series. Presented by Will McClatchey.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1uF99ww72Og

Slightly off topic - but sustainable!

Not proas, but surfboards...  It fits one of my Labels - "pacific life".  And most importantly, it is wisdom of a kind.  After all, it was Don Redondo who said:

"Ya wanna know 'bout surfin', you surf.  Ya' don't surf, ya don't know nothin' 'bout surfin'."

Enjoy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VutqWDqEJmg&app=desktop

The Surfer's Way of Knowledge...

Return to the Islands, by Arthur Grimble

This was found at NZETC, the New Zealand Electronic Text Collection:
http://nzetc.victoria.ac.nz/

 

 

From the Epigraph to Return to the Islands, by Arthur Grimble.

First Published 1957

Printed in Great Britain by Lewis Reprints Limited, Port Talbot, Glamorgan
and Published by John Murray (Publishers) Ltd.

 

Even in a little thing
(A leaf, a child's hand, a star's flicker)
I shall find a song worth singing
If my eyes are wide, and sleep not.

 

Even in a laughable thing
(Oh, hark! The children are laughing!)
There is that which fills the heart to overflowing,
And makes dreams wistful.

  

Small is the life of a man
(Not too sad, not too happy):
I shall find my songs in a man's small life.
     Behold them soaring!
Very low on earth are the frigate-birds hatched,
Yet they soar as high as the sun.

Gilbertese Song Translated by the Author

 

Illustrations and Sketch Map by Rosemary Grimble.

Link here:

http://nzetc.victoria.ac.nz/tm/scholarly/tei-GriRetu-t1-front-tp1.html

 

Waan Aelon in Majel - Canoes of the Marshall Islands

Waan Aelon in Majel

~ Canoes of the Marshall Islands ~

If any of you are not yet familiar with this awesome site and organization, please check it out.  It is a delight and a wonderful undertaking!

Go here:
http://www.canoesmarshallislands.com/

The WAM logo

Modern outrigger canoes racing

Visitors center

From the intro to their Mission Statement:

"Waan Aelõñ in Majel (WAM) is committed to empowering the young men and women of the Marshall Islands, endowing them with the skillset essential to bring them into the global society in which we find ourselves today.

WAM uses traditional Marshallese skills for men and women as a medium to transfer needed life skills and capacity building to the youth of the Marshall Islands.

The WAM program promotes sustainable economic and cultural development, national unity and self-identity..."

And their Facebook page here:
https://www.facebook.com/wam.rmi/

"Atoll Memory"

A video of Ant Atoll, near Pohnpei.  Uploaded to YouTube in 2008 by Lon Warneke. 

Some of Dame Jane Resture's sites

Her Micronesia Home Page:
http://www.janeresture.com/michome/index.htm

Micronesia Postcards and Photos:
http://www.janeresture.com/michome/postcards.htm

A canoe of the Carolines

A Kiribati canoe

A Yappese canoe at speed

Mokil and seafaring

Mokil is one of the more eastern islands in the Carolines.  It's actually in the Pohnpei district. Don't know how much seafaring they still do but I did find an old film (from the 40's?) which showed a lot of proa action.  It's here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PP64wcCKZcA
Film by Melvin Sloan and Conrad Bentzen, Project by J.E. Weckler, 1948, 60 mintues

The people are doing their best for the camera and there are lots of interesting scenes.  At around 41 and 42 minutes there are good racing scenes, including a shot of capsize recovery.  Of note is that they're recovering the small canoe in the same manner I have used:  by sinking the hull rather than the float to right the boat.

There's also a film here called The Last Sailing Canoe on Mokil:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TESimBxah80

Their canoes seem to have more in common with the Marshallese style.  Not unexpected given the proximity.

Model canoe, with paddle and bailer
Caroline Islands, Mokil
Collected by Saul H. Riesenberg, 1947, acc. 1948.
11–3263a-c

The model above was found here:

http://hearstmuseum.berkeley.edu/exhibitions/cent/gallery3_2_1.html

And from the Last Sailing Canoe video:

P.S. In finally getting to listen to this film, at one point the narrator mentions that they got this style of canoe from the Marshalls and have only had it about one generation...

The Satawalese Seasons

"Lefung concurs with our winter, it is "the impatience", the time of hunger.  Leraak, approximately our summer, is "the year", the time of plenty."

- from page 36 of The Last Navigator, by Stephen Thomas

Habele - the Outer Islands

Nice photos here in their Picasa Album:
https://picasaweb.google.com/HabeleFund/OuterIslands

Never Lost

From:
www.exploratorium.edu/neverlost/

Puluwat, contemporary photos

From the blog of Glenda and Eddy, cruising aboard Helena.
http://sailing-helena.blogspot.com/2014/07/puluwat-atoll-micronesia_5.html

Their comment and captions:

Puluwat is part of the Chuuk state in Micronesia, The FSM Federated States of Micronesia, are Kosrea, Pohnpei, Chuuk and Yap, named after their main islands.

The population in Puluwat is around a 1000, many relatives of the inhabitants are working and living in Chuuk, Guam, Saipan.

Puluwat was also active in the WW2 scene, almost 3000 Japanese soldiers were stationed here. many of them died of illness or hunger. On the island Alet is a 40 meter high lighthouse that still stands today, you can see the bullets from the shooting in the lighthouse. Also remains of cannons can be find. On the reef is a American bomber which was shot down, propellers, engines and armour can be seen in waters only 2-4 meters deep.

Typical local house

The beach at low tide

 

Clear water, and white beaches

Glenda sitting with the women

Ocean view from the top of the lighthouse

One of our guides sitting on a Japanese cannon