Hokulea Emerges in Maui Olowalu’s Reef
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| Hokulea -built reviving traditional milenary ways |
“Some of the oldest coral ever dated in the State exists here at Olowalu,” Mark Deakos said.
Mark Deakos is the Executive Director and Chief Scientists of the Hawaii Association for Marine Education and Research. He was the one who filed the initiative to include Olowalu’s Reef as a new Hope-Spot under the umbrella of Mission Blue.
Maui Time reported on August 21 from Olowalu where a Mission Blue Coalition -including Mark Deakos synchronized the naming of the Reef as a New Hope Spots with the kickstart of the 2017 Hawaii Leg Voyage of the legendary sailboat Hokule'a. The sailboat has already gone around the World and is ending its epic heritage voyage in Hawaii.
Aboard the Hokule´a the Coalition of Mission Blue declared the new reef as Hope Spot.
“Mission Blue Coalition has named the Olowalu reef a “Hope Spot” to recognize and support CMMA’s (Olowalu Community Managed Makai Area) efforts to protect the nearly one thousand-acre coral reef,” press released stated.
Hokule'a is a traditionally designed canoe sailboat which made international legends when it set out to travel the World Wide oceans the old-school way. The boat was constructed and sailed with no modern technology -just as ancient Polynesians used to sail. The team set out to mark a strong environmental message as well. Now they are out to reconnect Hawaii and end their global journey.
Supporters of Dr. Sylvia Earle’s Mission Blue Coalition and the CMMA gathered aboard Hokule'a to announce the “Hope Spot” and reinforce the importance of being dedicated to Olowalu reef. Veteran waterman and Lahaina resident Archie Kalepa arrived aboard the voyaging canoe to greet the Olowalu community, saying we need to be stewards and protect what we have left.
“We are in a good place and at a good time,” Kalepa said. “We come home to find out how beautiful our place is, and to find the jewel in our own backyard–Olowalu. As soon as we arrived at Olowalu today, I wanted to jump off the canoe.”
“Over 300-year-old corals, over 430 individual manta rays have been identified here. . . . It’s a very unique place, and we’re very excited about all these groups coming together . . . to really make an effort to preserve it and make sure it doesn’t fall fate to what some of our other reefs around the island have done,” Mark Deakos added.
The crew aboard the Hokule'a will now set out to connect or reconnect 41 more Hawaiian ports. “There is no place on Earth that is moving at as rapid a pace to take care of their home than Hawaii,” the crew assured.
La Haina News reported from the first port of the Voyage. “An iwa bird hovered high above the Hokule'a as she set anchor at Olowalu...The ocean was shimmering; the winds were fair; it was an epically unique location for a press conference on Maui, with the corps shuttled on board the storied ocean voyager by canoe after canoe, paddling from the beach (at the Honoapi'ilani Highway 14-mile marker) and skimming the calm surface chop across the sandy and coral laden near shore waters.Something surely to log - the breeze, the lapping seas, cool waters and a clear 360-degree view of the West Maui Mountains, neighboring islands, marine life, the Mo'okiha o Pi'ilani moored close by and good company,” reporter for La Haina local press wrote.
Nainoa Thompson -President of the Pacific Voyaging Society PVS -organization behind the Hokule`a canoe was present at the event along with ocean advocate Tiare Lawrence.
Lawrence, a Lahaina native, is one of the organizers of the Olowalu Community Managed Makai Area CMMA and Malama Olowalu.
"We are so proud to announce that our Olowalu mother reef is being recognized by Mission Blue as a Hope Spot," Lawrence advised.
"With this, we hope that we can continue to build community awareness around the world about our mother coral here and bring more attention to climate change and sea level rise and the impacts that land use is having on our reef."
Associated Press reported that despite the reef at Olowalu Maui is the largest and best developed it has been hit by erosion and other impacts. Coral bleaching and corals taking the deeper waters have dominated.
“Through the years, construction has surrounded the reef, as hotels and housing projects have been erected west and south of Olowalu. But local residents have fought to ensure the area itself remains mostly undeveloped,” Associated Press reported.
Locals and visitors have described the Maui Reefs as the most incredible reefs of Hawaii. Today some are concerned for the existence.
"The best benefit (of being a Hope Spot) is it will help us get our story out there and start to build a lot of community awareness and partnerships with international organizations that are working on similar issues," Lawrence said.
Maui News interviewed Pauline Fiene -diver and biologist in Maui.
“When the rains came to the sugar cane-covered slopes of Olowalu so many years ago, the soil would run down the mountains and into the ocean, coloring the water “chocolate brown,” said Pauline Fiene, a diver and biologist on Maui.
“That sediment not only smothered corals, but it became the gift that kept on giving,” Fiene, who’s been studying Hawaiian marine life for more than 30 years told the press. “Every time there was a little wave action, that silt was resuspended, and it reduced the amount of sunlight that the corals needed to grow. That contributed to the overall loss of coral reef over the past several decades.”
NOAA -the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration agreed on the ecological importance of the reef and its continual degradation due to runoff.
Bernardo Vargas-Angel -Coral Ecologist with NOAA told Maui News... “Its location at the heart of Maui Nui has made it a spawning ground that has helped populate reefs around Maui, Molokai and Lanai. But decades of runoff and recent coral bleaching events have taken their toll on the sprawling marine hub.”
“That’s why residents and those in the conservation community are enthusiastic about Olowalu’s newest designation as a Mission Blue Hope Spot,” he added.
"Despite having survived nearly 300 years at Olowalu, witnessing King Kamehameha joining the islands, the Olowalu Massacre, the arrival of the missionaries, the plantation era and the whaling era she has been unable to handle what we have thrown at her in the past 20 years. In 2016, after the severe coral bleaching event of 2015, she was 90 percent dead," Deakos kicked it.
"We're home," Crew of Hokule`a said..."we arrived two months ago, but the most important leg of that worldwide voyage is the one that we're on now," the first of 42 stops of the Mahalo, Hawai'i Sail.
...the iconic voyaging canoe Hokulea is still sailing...having gone more than 40,000 nautical miles with the stars, seas, and winds as sole guidance...
Some see new life and hope…
Sails of Hokule`a are hoisted at Maui, the canoe seems to have emerged from nowhere -or from the very depths of the ocean. A traditional sailboat with an impressive history and lineage, heritage and legend. A sailboat design which has crossed the World oceans over and over and over again. Just like it has been doing for Centuries. Now it rises at Hawaii to begin the 2017 Leg -a Voyage dedicated to reconnect Hawaii.
