our mission
To share with our guest an authentic experience, both culturally and historically, based on the use of the Wa'a (canoe) and its roots in Polynesian culture.
To become immersed in the waterman culture that is Hawai'i as we explore the waters of Kailua Bay.
To experience the abundant Hawaiian sea life that is our bay- from the fish, Honu (sea turtle), 'Iwa (Hawaiian Frigate bird) and `Ilio holo i ka uaua. (Hawaiian monk seals).
To partner with non-profits and after-school programs offering our resources and time to mentor and educate the keiki on the ocean and as our future caretakers of the Island.
our values
KULEANA
Taking care of kuleana at the individual, familial, community, world level. To teach and instill values to emphasize the kuleana of every individual to care for the community.
As stewards of the kai and ʻāina, keiki from all backgrounds will learn to embrace their kuleana as caretakers of all ecosystems that must be nurtured for future generations. That for future generations, we can all be sustained and live in a healthy and fruitful environment.
Through modern day scientific tools and resources as well as Hawaiian practices, students will learn what is needed to protect and restore our environment and of traditional aspects of the ahupuaʻa which teaches practiced aloha), laulima, and malama resulting in a desirable pono.
OHANA
We are interconnected in family through our physical relationships, friendships and through our community relationships. It is our kuleana to actively seek out ways to help and protect one another. Giving and receiving help is what we do as a ohana.
Ke Kānāwai Māmalahoe
As a young warrior chief, Kamehameha the Great came upon commoners fishing along the shoreline. He attacked the fishermen, but during the struggle caught his foot in a lava crevice. One of the fleeing fishermen turned and broke a canoe paddle over the young chief’s head. The fisherman’s act reminded Kamehameha that human life was precious and deserved respect, and that it is wrong for the powerful to mistreat those who may be weaker.
Years later when Kamehameha became ruler of Hawai‘i, he declared one of his first laws, Ke Kānāwai Māmalahoe (the Law of the Splintered Paddle), which guaranteed the safety of the highways to all no matter the creed or race.
ALOHA ‘ĀINA
A relationship not just with the land but really with nature itself and the land, sea, streams and water that sustains all life.
Polynesian navigators arrived in the Hawaiian Islands in canoes filled with plants that would become the foundation of the most complex and sophisticated agricultural systems in Oceania. These canoe plants had been cultivated by the Polynesians and sustained their existence as they moved out across the Pacific. The navigators brought some twenty-five differing canoe plants to Hawai’i- noni for medicine, kukui for light, kamani for wood. Food plants such as ‘uala, stalks of kō or sugarcane, ‘ulu and kalo- the root of life with early Hawaiians growing hundreds of varieties of to sustain life.
E kanu i ka huli oi ha‘ule ka ua- Plant the taro stalks while there is rain- do your work when opportunity affords. A lesson that the navigators lived by, arriving in a land full of opportunity and beginning to work in partnership with it.