There are many rules to outrigger canoeing.
There is no swearing in the boats; no stepping over the boats as people maneuver them on sand to the water’s edge. To enter and exit the canoes, one must swing both legs together over the edge – no straddling the hull, which would be interpreted as a sign of disrespect to the canoe, which is treated as a member of the paddle team.
Before shoving off, members of the Hi’ilani ’O Ke Kai Outrigger and Cultural Center in Monterey first gather on the shore of Del Monte Beach for a pule, or prayer, asking permission to enter the ocean and to return safely.
“We are centering the crew, getting everyone in the same mindset of why we are here,” says paddler Manuel Delgado, the group’s past paddle representative.
When Delgado is called upon to lead a pule, he likes to focus on “how much the ocean gives us and how little in return it expects from us,” he says. “I like to talk about respecting the ocean. I also want to talk about seeking beauty in the ocean, of having thankfulness, gratitude, honor our founders and those who have been paddling for 40 years.”
Hi’ilani ’O Ke Kai is a cultural home for Hawaiian and other Pacific Islander traditions, founded in 1984. But those traditions – chiefly hula dancing and outrigger canoeing – date back thousands of years.
Beginning as early as 2000 BCE, the Lapita people set out from Taiwan in wooden canoes into the Pacific Ocean. They paddled thousands of miles, for weeks at a time, with no land features visible on the horizon. They carried passengers and goods, and began settling in the islands of Samoa and Tonga, and from there continued exploring the islands of Polynesia, eventually including Hawaii. There were no maps, no compasses – just an understanding of the sea, the stars and a trust that most of us modern GPS-users can only guess at.
Outrigger canoes – easily identifiable for the outrigger floats lashed with rope parallel to the canoe hull – remained a part of Polynxesian life for centuries.
Then colonization began, and in the 18th century, the use of outriggers began to diminish. A range of cultural practices came under attack.
By 1830, Hawaii’s own ruler, Queen Regent Ka‘ahumanu, under the influence of Protestant missionaries came to view hula as a pagan ritual, a threat. She banned the Hawaiian dance form. In 1896, the Hawaiian language was banned.
But the customs – the language, the dance, the familiarity with the sea – never went away. Today, current generations of Polynesians are continuing to cultivate and learn these traditions, and the Polyenesian community in Monterey County continues lifting them up and sharing them with a growing number of dancers, paddlers and friends from all backgrounds. They do it year-round, including in May, Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month, when Hi’ilani ’O Ke Kai hosts its annual Hoe Wa’a outrigger race.
Before that race and every race, and before every paddle, the group will circle up for a pule.
“You want to earn the respect of the people you are paddling with that day,” Delgado says. “You want to be a good ancestor to the people who will follow you.”
Local Hawaiian cultural groups are deeply attuned to lineage – paying respect to those who came before, and setting an example for those who will come after. It happens literally, with traditions and lessons handed down from blood relatives, and also in the broader ohana, or family, that is welcoming.
It can feel in this community like everyone is an Auntie or an Uncle, but these titles are earned through knowledge, teaching and respect.Manley Pōmaika‘i Bush Sr., known as Uncle Manley, blessed the canoes at the start of the outrigger season this year. Bush himself is more likely to be found playing ukulele or singing in his band, Ho’omana, but Hi’ilani ’O Ke Kai includes music, bringing together two core cultural traditions – outrigger canoeing and hula.
Manley Bush’s daughters, Marleen Bush and Marlo Kaleookalani Lualemana, grew up with hula lessons in their childhood in Hawaii, although it didn’t quite stick at that time. He was in the military so their family moved often, including to Monterey when he was stationed at Fort Ord.
Bush and Lualemana were raised in a home that they describe as being an ohana in the diaspora, open for Hawaiians and other Pacific Islanders in the military, with recruits of all ages gathering to chat or share a meal. And for both sisters, the spirit of aloha became a guiding principle in their adult lives.
“It’s our kuleana – our responsibility – to give back to our community,” Lualemana says. “It’s a passion we have.”
More than 50 percent of native Hawaiians now live off the islands, pushing the sisters’ commitment to keep the traditions alive for members of the diaspora – and beyond. Hi’ilani ‘O Ke Kai paddlers and hula dancers are not just Pacific Islanders, but also hail from all over the world – all are welcome as long as they express a genuine curiosity about learning the culture.
Both sisters have committed themselves to earning leadership roles in the community.
“Our culture is open,” Bush says. “I was never taught not to share.”
Lualemana, who works as a tattoo artist professionally, just completed a college degree in Hawaiian culture and language. She grew up hearing it spoken by grandparents, but was not taught to speak fluently in her youth.
In 2019, Bush earned the title of kumu hula, a master teacher, and was recognized with a ceremonial kīhei garment to celebrate. “Hula is the heartbeat of Hawaii,” Lualamana says of her sister’s leadership.
Hula dances tell a story, and in her teaching at Hi’ilani ’O Ke Kai’s hula hālau (school), Bush focuses on all of the elements that contribute to the story. “It’s not just head and arm motion, it’s the look of an eye or an eyebrow, the way you lean forward,” she says.
“As a hula dancer we have to truly express – and,” she adds, “have fun.”
Fun is central to any cultural club, and in Hawaiian culture, so is the feeling of inclusiveness. At Nā Haumāna in Marina, a drumming and hula hālau, leader Louella Sumler says the studio is open to participants well beyond their rehearsals – they can show up just to hang out, do homework or look for an Auntie or Uncle to talk to.
Sumler is Filipina but grew up dancing in Marina thanks to her Tongan best friend, and embraced the spirit of aloha. Growing up, she remembers practicing after church on Sundays, then lingering all day. “We would also do our homework together and make costumes, and the aunties would feed us,” she says. “The bonds I have had with my hula sisters [last], even now when we see each other later in life.”
As an adult, Sumler wanted to re-create that feeling and found it in a new ohana, Nā Haumāna, which launched in 2018 and that she took over in 2021 (as a volunteer, in addition to her work as a nurse). “You have that family you are born into, but this is the family we create,” Sumler says. She points to a pile of shoes at the studio door as the evidence that Nā Haumāna is serving its role, reminiscent of the homes that served as extended ohanas in her childhood.
As a kumu hula, she directs practice for a range of skill levels. At a recent practice, she and her team adjust children (keiki) who are on the left foot when they should be on the right, directing them to move in unison.
There’s also the story they need to keep in mind. “Laka is the goddess of hula. That’s who you’re honoring,” Sumler tells the children about this dance.
“Choreography is taught once the students are versed in the basics,” she says. “When choreography comes in, the purpose of hula is to embody whatever story we are trying to tell. That’s where the emotion behind your motion comes in. It’s no longer just smiling through the whole song, because not every song is happy.”
After the young dancers wrap up, Louella’s husband, Stephen Sumler, leads Tahitian drumming. At a recent practice, about two dozen drummers gather in the studio with a variety of instruments including tall, skinny traditional toere played with big, wooden sticks; the taller tupai hand drums, played from a standing position; and the tari parau, a big bass drum.
There is no talking, just the power and intensity that vibrates through the studio and everyone in it, except when Stephen Sumler calls out a toma, announcing there are 16 beats to the end. They power along, all playing different parts, until a triumphant and sudden ending.
“Polynesian island culture is very intentional,” Louella says. “You don’t just pick a red dress because you like it – you might pick it because you are talking about a red flower.”
Nā Haumāna’s drummers and the dancers learn to make their own costumes for performances. Tahitian-style feather helmets – ornate, towering headgear – are still in use from last year’s big performance choreographed around a warrior theme, inspired by Kamehameha I, the first unifying ruler of the Hawaiian islands. The feathers used to adorn only royalty, Sumler says: “It is about who gets to adorn themselves in feathers.”
Marieta Wata grew up in Suva, the capital city of Fiji in the South Pacific. Life in the capital is very much Western-influenced, the result of colonization, Wata says, but her education included annual trips to small villages where she would see people still using outrigger canoes and bamboo rafts, similar to stand-up paddle-boards called bilibili, for transportation, but it was never part of her life until about a year ago.
In adulthood, Wata left Fiji and moved to the San Francisco Bay Area and then five years ago to Monterey, where she first tried outrigger canoeing with Hi’ilani ’O Ke Kai.
“I grew up on the island, surrounded with water, but I never really paddled,” Wata says. “Once I got into the water, there was just a connection for me. It reconnected me to my roots.”
Now it has become a regular part of her life, with twice-weekly practices for races. Wata paddles in seat 4 or 5, “the engine room.” “It’s like the powerhouse of the crew,” she says.
It takes all six people to move an outrigger canoe. Delgado – who first joined mostly motivated by fitness goals, which he has long since fulfilled – sits in seat 3, reading the water while paddling and calling out directions to the crew on when to change sides, known as calling the hut. (The command begins with a warning, “hut,” followed by “ho,” the change call.)
Part of the task from seat 3 is studying the water – cresting over the swell and into a trough between waves, turning corners on a race course – and also reading the crew, how fatigued they are and whether they need to switch sides sooner, or maybe they can push to a 16-count stroke. “As you approach a swell you want to keep that energy up – you are climbing that mountain, and that mountain is moving and you are moving,” Delgado says. “There is an art and a science to it.”
Art and science meet discipline in paddling, with all six paddlers synced up, each filling a specific role – setting the pace in seat 1, transmitting that pace from seat 2, steering from seat 6. “Everyone in the canoe should look straight forward,” Delgado adds. “It is not a sightseeing trip. If you look back, you go out of sync immediately.”
The outrigger group opens up to the general public for rec paddle the first and third Sunday of the month, welcoming anyone to join in (although there is instruction and an expectation that all participants follow the rules and protocols). Some will try it once, others will become lifelong members, racing competitively and joining the ohana.
They celebrate this growing family and spirit of aloha with the annual Hoe Wa’a outrigger race, that opens with a hula performance.
Wata will be among those racing, but outrigger canoeing is about something much bigger.
“I always think of home when I am in the water,” she says. “When we launch, I feel I am one with my people.”