A huge mahalo to Rob, Mike and Randol for joining me in taking the boat out for the first time last night.
What a really great evening. We ended up getting to the boat and noticing the ama (float) wasn’t very securely attached, so as I was beginning to re-rig it, over comes Uncle Kimokeo. He congratulates me on acquiring the boat, tells me the wrong ama is on it anyway, and not to bother re-rigging it and disappears for about 30 seconds. When he gets back he brings the right ama along with three other guys to help rig.
In ten minutes the thing is secured and they help us slide it into the ocean. The boat is a bit heavy and sits pretty low in the water but there’s no pukas (holes) on the bottom. It floats! We spend the next half hour or so paddling upwind before turning around and catching a few waves and the current back to shore. It’s a rough first ride, but she floats, and that’s as good as we could hope for at this point!
Uncle Kimokeo showed a lot of interest in the project. And for someone who has paddled an outrigger canoe vast distances in the past and actually has plans to paddle a six man outrigger canoe some 2700 miles to Tahiti, this was a rare blessing. His guidance in this project is an invaluable resource and if we get lucky, we may be able to convince him to be on our crew when we set off for Moloka’i in about two months… Stay posted, more coming soon!
nice ride… i was totally ready to get wet!