The Hōkūleʻa and Hikianalia departed Tahiti last week for Honolulu – beginning the final leg of their worldwide journey. We caught up with Nāʻālehu Anthony the day after the Hōkūleʻa set sail for home.

[Photo Credit: ʻŌiwi TV / Nāʻālehu Anthony]

Things are going great, we have some great trade wind weather in the Southern hemisphere. We left Tautira, Tahiti yesterday, and so we’re a better part of 100 miles out from Tahiti working our way toward the Tuamotu Archipelago. Specifically Makatea, which we should be in in a few hours. And then from that we’ll be able to work our way towards probably Rangiroa, which is the outer edge of the Tuamotus before we jump off into the 2500 mile sail up to Hawaii.

[Photo Credit: ʻŌiwi TV / Nāʻālehu Anthony]

The crew was really sad to go. The people of Tautira are just an amazing group of people who have always taken such good care of the canoe and the crew members who have come through. And so it was bittersweet leaving yesterday. And the families all came out and sang until we were out of sight. And just gave everyone the warmest send-off that you could possibly get. But it was time to go, the wind started to fill in and we have been on a weather hold for a handful of days. And so we felt like “Okay, time to go, we need to start this journey home.” And everyone was just really supportive of all the work that we had to do along the way. Just great, great times.

[Photo Credit: ʻŌiwi TV / Nāʻālehu Anthony]

I would invite all the folks back home to join us in celebration on June 17th, and come down and bring your families to Magic Island. It’s going to be an amazing day. I’ve seen film footage of the original arrival in 1976, back from Tahiti after that first voyage. And it looked like it was an amazing experience and we’re expecting thousands of people. But we want to really share in the joy of completing this voyage after three years and 40,000 nautical miles. It’s going to be really good to be home.

Follow the two voyaging canoes on Google Maps: