Mark Ellis first got interested in Hōkūleʻa when he was 7 years old and his parents took him to Magic Island to welcome her back from a voyage to Tahiti.
“My parents remember me tugging on my dad and saying, ʻI want to sail on that — I called it a boat at that time — I want to sail on that boat,’ ” Ellis told Aloha State Daily, adding that now he refers to Hōkūleʻa as a waʻa kaulua, or double-hulled voyaging canoe. “And that kind of started this process.”
In elementary school, Ellis built a replica of the Hōkūle’a for a project and asked his parents to take him to see it in dry dock. In his free time, he would trace the outlines of voyaging canoes using a family book.
“Let me grab it!” Ellis said. “Hold on real quick.”
With the book — “Voyage: The Discovery of Hawaiʻi” by Herb Kawainui Kāne — in hand, he flipped through some of its pages, noticing indentations from outlines traced years earlier.
Now, Ellis is the education director for the Polynesian Voyaging Society, which operates Hōkūleʻa. On Saturday, March 7, he will join PVS — and a number of nonprofits — in inviting ocean-goers of all levels to experience Polynesian voyaging culture as part of the 17th annual Kualoa/Hakipuʻu Canoe Festival.
The free event starts at 10 a.m. and runs until 3 p.m. at Kualoa Regional Park. It is organized by the City and County of Honolulu’s Department of Parks and Recreation, along with a number of voyaging and educational organizations and includes opportunities to jump in and paddle.
“There's a lot of different activities and a lot of hands-on activities,” he added.
Ellis anticipates at least a dozen canoes will attend. The festival also serves as the birthday celebration of Hōkūleʻa, which launched from the shores of Kualoa/Hakipuʻu in Kāneʻohe Bay on March 8, 1975. This year, Hōkūleʻa — and her younger sister, Hikianalia — are in New Zealand as part of Moananuiākea, a 43,000 nautical mile circumnavigation of the Pacific.
Ellis, who calls Nuʻuanu home, sailed on Hikianalia’s voyage to California and on Hōkūleʻa during the worldwide Mālama Honua voyage, including the legs from Samoa to Aotearoa, Florida to Virginia, New York to Virginia and to the Galápagos Islands, according to PVS’ website.
He previously spoke with ASD about training the next generation of navigators as captain of the Iosepa, a double-hulled sailing canoe, which resides at the Polynesian Cultural Center when it is not on the water.
Ellis remembers taking his own kids, the youngest of whom turns 18 years old this week, to the Kualoa/Hakipuʻu Canoe Festival when they were keiki.
“My kids, they loved it,” he said. “When they're small, they're like: ʻWhat? We can go on that canoe?’”
They headed for a little sandbar, where they took a break and stood in about two feet of water, he said.
“Even if it's just half a mile out, you get this different perspective,” Ellis said. “Especially in that Kualoa/Hakipuʻu area, where there's not a lot of buildings and houses — the way I like to see it is: ‘Oh, that might be how Hawaiʻi was before, and what Hawaiʻi could be also in the future.’”
At the festival, PVS will run a booth and share information about seamanship skills and the art of wayfinding and navigation, he added. Ellis will be helping keiki and adults fill out Voyage for Earth pledge cards. Event attendees can pledge to help the planet, which could include deciding to pick up trash, find a solution to water problems or be kinder to siblings, he said.
“We have them think about what would they do to make the earth a better place and how will they care for the earth,” he said, adding that the pledges will later be used to create a large work of art.
“All types of people are there,” Ellis said. “There’s people that are from Hawaiʻi. There's other people that come across it, and they're not from Hawaiʻi, and they’re like: ʻWhoa, what is this? This is awesome!’ There will be free parking, and there'll be the food vendors. That’s kind of what was cool to me is that everyone is very welcoming.”
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Katie Helland can be reached at katie@alohastatedaily.com.
