Visitor from Alaska finds students’ missive On Nov. 1, 1996, students at Kahili Adventist School on Kaua’i wrote a note, put it in a bottle and had dropped it in the ocean from the Hokule’a Hawaiian sailing canoe Two Saturdays
Visitor from Alaska finds students’ missive
On Nov. 1, 1996, students at Kahili Adventist School on Kaua’i wrote a note, put it in a bottle and had dropped it in the ocean from the Hokule’a Hawaiian sailing canoe
Two Saturdays ago, Jim LaBau found it on a beach almost back from where it started
LaBau, 65 and retired after a career as a forester in Alaska, was beachcombing Feb. 10 in Wailua near the Bay View condominiums during one of the frequent visits here by he and his wife, Kay, when he spotted the clear-glass, sealed bottle wedged among some rocks
Curious about the contents, he took the bottle to Garden Island Mirrors and Glass in Kapa’a to have it cut open. Out came two notes, wrapped in newspaper, signed and dated by several Kahili students. They asked whoever found the notes to write to them at the school “and tell us about your life. We would love that.” Last week, LaBau not only wrote a letter to the students, he tried to hand-deliver it to them at Kahili. But many have moved on to other schools
LaBau left copies of the students’ notes and his letter at Kahili and Kaua’i High School, where it’s believed some of the children now attend. He also gave the original notes, faded and tattered but partially readable, to the daughter of Steve Soltysik, who was listed as a contact in Lihu’e on one of the notes
According to the bottle messages, the students were participating in a class project to study ocean and wind currents in conjunction with the sailing of the Hokule’a as the vessel retraced the route of Hawaiian ancestors
In his letter to the Kahili students, LaBau wrote, “I know that the Hokule’a has special meaning to Hawaiians, but it also has meaning to Alaskans. The Hokule’a ended its journey near Juneau at Sandy Beach on Douglas Island, where I lived for 15 years. The Alaska natives greeted the Hokule’a in their ceremonial canoes and held a welcoming potlatch. It was a very well-attended event. I think that was in the spring of 1997.”
LaBau, who has two adult children and three grandchildren, said he’s glad he found the bottle on one of his daily morning strolls to enjoy the Kaua’i sunrise, even if he couldn’t tell the students “that the bottle floated all the way to my home in Alaska.”
Editor Pat Jenkins can be reached at 245-3681 (ext. 227) and mailto:pjenkins@pulitzer.net
