STAR-BULLETIN / 1999 The Hokule'a, shown here in silhouette on Maunalua Bay, continues its 30th-anniversary sail around the state today. The 62-foot-long double-hulled canoe is embarking on a 10-day voyage through the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands.

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Hokule‘a to trek
entire Hawaiian chain

The canoe will stop at religious
sites as it celebrates its
30th anniversary

HANALEI, Kauai » The Polynesian sailing canoe Hokule'a was set to continue its 30th-anniversary sail around the state today, setting out from Kauai on a 10-day voyage through the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands.

The 62-foot-long double-hulled voyaging canoe was slated to first visit the so-called "kupuna islands" of Nihoa and Mokumanamana (Necker Island).

Hula master Pua Kanahele and other Hawaiian cultural practitioners will be aboard to re-establish a spiritual connection to the two islands, organizers said.

Mokumanamana is just 46 acres in size, but it features 55 ancient cultural sites and stone structures, including 33 that are believed to be heiau, or religious temples.

It is believed Hawaiians probably traveled to Mokumanamana from Nihoa, about 155 miles away, and the main Hawaiian islands primarily for religious purposes.

Nihoa might have been home to as many as 175 people between 1000 and 1700, experts believe. The 171-acre island was no longer occupied when the first Europeans reached it in 1789.

After stopping off at the two islands, the Hokule'a is to travel the length of the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands, visiting a number of other islands, as well as reefs and shoals, before returning.

Since its construction in 1975, the Polynesian Voyaging Society's canoe has sailed to Easter Island, New Zealand, Samoa, Tahiti and island groups across Polynesia, reviving the navigational techniques of ancient Polynesians.

The society was founded as a private nonprofit organization two years before to disprove the notion that Polynesians drifted through the Pacific Ocean to the Hawaiian Islands by chance.