Greeting a most particular canoe

The Visitor

26 January – 2 February 2017

Greeting a most particular canoe

Jaime Figueroa Navarro

Endearment and passion separate special human beings from the crowd.  In Spain’s Golden Age, writer, poet and dramatist Pedro Calderon de la Barca uttered: “What is life? A frenzy.  What is life? An illusion.  Life is but a dream and dreams are dreams”.  This soliloquy is to Spanish literature what Hamlet’s “To be or not to be” speech is to the English.

“Ring, ring!” my cellular telephone shrieks for attention early last Saturday morning.  Earth Train founder and Chairman Nathan Gray is on the line.  “Hello Jaime, we need an MC and a wholehearted Panama welcome tomorrow afternoon at the BioMuseum for Captain Nainoa Thompson and the Hokule’a Hawaiian canoe crew.  Would you be available in short notice?”  “I’m always available Nathan.  Tell me about it”.

The Polynesian Voyaging Society’s global go-around foray has arrived at the Balboa Yacht Club on its last leg after crossing the Panama Canal from the Caribbean to the Pacific.   Harder to believe is that the 3-year journey has been completed almost entirely using traditional Polynesian navigation methods.  This skill, identified as ‘wayfinding’ involves the use of our natural surroundings (stars, clouds, waves and winds) as its sole guide.  This is a first; a voyage of this nature has never been undertaken in history.

Nainoa Thompson has more in store for us.  The journey is not about sailing a 62x20 double-hulled canoe to circumnavigate the globe.   In fact, if the story were simply about making it safely around the world, then the voyage would be considered vain.  Instead, at the core of this amazing endeavor is the concept of stewardship, a cultural but ultimately universal belief.

If we want to leave a better world to out descendants, we better start taking care of it now.  As sustainability has evidently become a global affair, the members of the Polynesian Voyaging Society recognize this to be an issue that islanders have dealt with for generations.   The expedition has been christened Mālama Honua, or “caring for Island Earth”, with a specific emphasis on the notion that our world is an island and that there are teachings we can learn from island communities.  This is the key drive to sail 47,000 nautical miles over three years to deliver the punch line in 85 cities across 26 different countries.

Endearment and passion place Captain Nainoa at a different threshold.  Life is but a dream, and dreams are dreams.  We’re honored to salute this humble man, forever tanned by the waves of courage with a firm grip in his hands and his waterproof resolve.  Welcome to Panama!