He is also the star of a film, Our Blue Canoe, due for release in 2015, which tells the tale of the Marumaru Atua's epic 12,000-mile voyage across the Pacific, alongside six other Polynesian ocean canoes, from New Zealand, Samoa, Tonga, Fiji, Tahiti and Hawaii.
In April, seven traditional Polynesian ocean-going vessels called vakas, and their 16 member crews, set sail on a 15,000 nautical mile journey across the Pacific.
Hokule'a is a twin-hulled canoe, or vaka, based on the ancient design of open-ocean Polynesian voyaging canoes.
Tangaroa Blue, named after the Māori and Polynesian god of the ocean, recorded its 10 millionth piece of plastic debris last year.
Finally, the region of overlap hypothesis [ 21] maintains that the high species diversity in the CT is due to the overlap of faunas from two biogeographic provinces: Indo-Polynesian and Western Indian Ocean [ 22].
Ocean, Aloha postcard, Polynesian fabric, lobster claw, starfish and squid: Corbis.
They reconstructed a double-hulled voyaging canoe in order to test both its seaworthiness and the efficacy of traditional (i.e., noninstrumental) navigation methods over the long ocean routes that Polynesians had once traveled.
It seems to me that globalization began the first time any intrepid sailor left the security of land for an unknown ocean destination, Phoenician, Viking, Polynesian, Asian, no matter where or when the reality of departure defined the expectation of arrival, even if there were only stars to guide the way.
It's what you would expect from an ocean crossroads populated by Polynesians and early-20th-century plantation immigrants from across the globe.
These two traditional sailing canoes, the Hōkūle'a, left, and the Hikianalia, departed Hawaii in 2013 for a four-year voyage around the globe as part of the Polynesian Voyaging Society's effort to promote ocean conservation.
Newcomer Auli'i Cravalho voices Moana, the smart, rebellious daughter of a Polynesian king; she is entrusted by the ocean-spirit with a precious stone: a sweet initial scene with the uncomprehending one-year-old Moana waddling into the magically parting surf.
