Te Mana o Te Moana Hawaii
Several thousand years ago, the Polynesian ancestors traveled the Pacific on great voyaging canoes, called vaka moana, using only the stars, the ocean, and the surrounding wildlife to navigate, and lived closely connected to the sea. In crossing the Pacific from Aotearoa to Hawai’i, Pacific Voygers aimes to sail in the ancestors‘ wake and learn from their wisdom. They want to teach young people about this old bond with the sea.
The idea to sail across the Pacific on seven vaka is to raise awareness about the state of the ocean developed gradually. Dieter Paulmann, the founder of Okeanos – Foundation for the Sea, has felt a strong connection to the sea for his whole life. Long before he learned about the threatened state of the sea and began his mission to preserve it, he felt a deep bond with, and relationship to, the inhabitants of the sea, especially with the whales and dolphins.
The motto for the whole project, which reflects the spiritual thinking in Polynesian culture about the sea, which has the same life-force running through its water as runs through our bodies, and how to treat this precious resource to not disturb Tangaroa, the God of the Sea. The following saying is a poetic way to say „be respectful and gentle“:
„Move your paddle silently through the water“
client Pacific Voyagers
country Hawaii
