Report #1 - 2012 - Uto ni Yalo - The Journey Continues
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By Robert Tuxson

What started out tentatively in 2010 by a band of dedicated visionaries now called The Fiji Island Voyaging Society has in 2012 blossomed into a full fledged movement complete with purpose, direction and an armada like most have never seen before! We are the Pacific Voyagers and we not only represent our beloved Fiji, but we are now one with our mother ocean and all its inhabitants. Just as the sea turtles return to the nesting beaches that was their place of hatching to continue the cycle of life, the intrepid sailors who represent what is good and great in our sea faring ancestors have returned to their places of rebirth now temporarily docked in San Diego, their "Drua"- canoes - their mothers who have safely lead them across the expanses of the Pacific from their home islands and atolls to California. Now weeks and months later they will return on the longest and most arduous trip that seven, 72-foot twin hulled, non-motorised vessels of ancient Polynesian design have ever undertaken! The 112 veterans of sea, salt and sand will carry with them the message of hope so fervently shared with attentive school students by the crew of the Uto ni Yalo in the mysterious mountains north of San Diego yesterday. Hope in the resiliency of our ocean that life giver that connects the world from pole to pole and from meridian to dateline. Faith in the heart of our younger generation to take heed of lessons learned the hard way and of those almost entirely forgotten from our ancestors who regularly plied Oceania without GPS, compass and sextant using the knowledge of natural history as their guide.

 

Why risk your life for a cause? Why devote long and arduous months at sea only broken by the hard earned respite on those unique islands and archipelagos that dot the vast Pacific? The human condition demands that we learn. Curiosity of the unknown brought our forefathers into these islands and we have to discover how they did it well before Captain Cook and Ferdinand Magellan ever saw a blue whale, white shark or hawksbill turtle! It is our imperative to begin to fix what countless generations have upset. Can you count the number of baby catfish in a school of "kaboa"? Not all at once for sure, but one by one and day by day we will succeed and you will become an integral part of that quest. You will share our adventure vicariously with us. You will get to know your crew, that team of diverse individuals from the seasoned captain to the newcomers; from the "matua’s" to the youngest; from the village lad to the university grad and from the four corners of our island nation from Rotuma in the north to Lau in the east and from Yasawa in the west to Kadavu in the south - we are you and you are us!

 

The Uto ni Yalo - Tabu Soro.......................the journey continues.