KAILUA BAY— When he was 8 years old, Kawika Kanuha Crivello found his family staring at a television, looking at a vision of the Polynesian voyaging canoe Hokulea underwater after the vessel capsized in the seas off Molokai.
Crivello knew it was significant, he said, given the tears in his parents’ eyes, and at that moment, he was inspired.
“I wanted to be a part of putting her back upright and continuing her legacy,” he said. “At that time I didn’t understand why, but I knew. As I stared into that TV it was a surreal moment for me. I wanted to be a part of Hokulea.”
Crivello has been with the Polynesian Voyaging Society since 1992; his first voyage was with crew members such as Nainoa Thompson, Richard “Buffalo” Keaulana and Penny Rawlins Martin, who all participated in Hokulea’s inaugural 1976 voyage from Hawaii to Tahiti and back.
And on Saturday, Crivello, now crew captain, sat aboard Hokulea at Kailua Pier, where the crew for the past week has welcomed scores of keiki, kupuna and everyone in between to learn and experience the traditions of seafaring and navigation. Now, Crivello finds himself in the position of meeting kids who themselves have been inspired by this current roster of voyagers in much the same way he was years ago.
“When they tell that to me, I quickly go and turn and look at the ones — my kumus, my teachers — that have taught me,” said Crivello. “So it’s not like they’re only thanking me, but I’m turning around, because it feels so good, that I turn around and thank the ones that have taught me.”
Scores of people flocked to Kailua Pier this past week to experience Hokulea, the 62-foot double-hulled voyaging canoe, as well as speak with and learn from the crew. An arrival ceremony is scheduled to take place from 11:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Monday in Hilo at the Grand Naniloa Hotel.
The crew’s visit to Kona comes as part of the “Mahalo, Hawaii” sail, which kicked off last August to celebrate and commemorate the communities and residents that helped make the three-year Malama Honua Worldwide Voyage a reality.
“It’s literally coming full circle in every sense of that phrase,” said crew member Kaipo Kiaha. “Out of all the amazing places that we’ve been and out of all the amazing people that we were able to meet, there’s still nothing like home here in Hawaii.”
Crivello said throughout the Malama Honua Worldwide Voyage, which brought the voyaging canoe and its crew throughout the world’s regions, they were carrying with them “the gift of aloha.”
“We speak of malama, ‘to take care of,’ but at the very core of it is aloha, yeah?” he said. “You love something before you can take care of it. It comes natural when you aloha.”
Hokulea, for Crivello, represents the kupuna and “old knowledge,” something he communicates to students who come to learn about traditional seafaring methods and navigation.
“And the analogy I use is, in order to know where you’re going, you need to know where you came from,” he said. “You need to know your past. The answers are there.”
Likewise, Kiaha said he hopes a visit to see Hokulea inspires hope and pride in people.
“To say that our canoe, this invention that is thousands of years old, was able to not only carry our ancestors here from Polynesia, but to literally circumnavigate the globe, it just goes to show the ingenuity of our kupuna, our ancestors, that they were able to create something, create this vessel that literally has no boundaries,” he said. “It can sail anywhere.”
During Saturday’s visits, Kau resident Michael Sosa presented Crivello with a model he built of Hokulea. Sosa said he’s been following Hokulea since the beginning and began making model canoes when the vessel started its tour.
“I enjoy this, I just do. It’s in my blood, I guess,” he said. “The culture never dies. It still lives on.”
Among the crowds who visited Hokulea were many families, all of which spoke about the importance of showing their children the voyaging canoe and teaching them about its cultural significance.
“It’s Hawaiian culture, and it’s good to keep the kids informed and educated about what they do and traveling the world and how they do it, and how they survive throughout this traveling around the world,” said Levanda Kainoa-Salvador, who came to the pier with her husband and three boys.
Ikaika Kainoa-Salvador said Hokulea represents “everybody sailing together and working as a team with each other,” adding that he liked learning about how crew members slept on the vessel.
And Levanda Kainoa-Salvador added that, personally, she’d love to take a voyage similar to Hokulea’s crew.
It would beat an airplane ride, she said, where you have to look through the glass of a window.
“But this one, you can feel the fresh air,” she said. “And that’s the mana about it, is feeling the outside world.”
It was beautiful to see the Kona-rooted crew members bring Hokulea home and share her with the community.