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Molokai Challenge Lives up to its Name

Tuesday, July 25th, 2006

By 10 a.m. Saturday the beach in front of the Embassy Suites north of Lahaina was packed with huge brightly-colored kites, some as wide as 50 feet. Almost as colorful was the multinational group of 84 kiteboarders and windsurfers, who busied themselves rigging gear or sprawled under a tree, waiting, hoping, praying for even a breath of wind.

The athletes were assembled for the fourth annual Molokai Ocean Challenge, a benefit for Youth In Motion, an organization dedicated to getting Molokai’s youth active in sports.

At 11 a.m., the event’s scheduled start time, the wind had picked up to a whisper, but it was coming from the east. By 12:30 two kiteboarders, unable to wait any longer, had paddled nearly two miles out into the channel to reach the wind line. Around 1:30 everyone began packing up and hitching rides up the coast to Flemmings beach, where the wind was strong enough to take them out to the channel. Eventually all 84 participants made it across to Molokai, which was a great relief to Clare Seeger Mawae, race organizer and founder of YIM.

"I was making some pretty heavy duty prayers,” said Seeger Mawae. “So I was happy when people started coming in. The whole move was pretty amazing how we made it all happen.”

Due to the staggered, free-for-all start of the race, there was no official winner declared. But it was clear from watching the kiteboarders race around Kamalo Wharf and launch themselves into the air, that they were more interested in having fun than winning.

“It was all good at the end of the day,” said Seeger Mawae. “Everyone had a blast, everyone said it was a huge success. Next year we’re going to have two launch locations.”

Mawae estimates that the event brought in $3,000 to $4,000. The funds will be used to support the Na `Opio Hana Pa`a, a festival that accompanies the race and provides sports clinics for Molokai youth. This year there were six clinics run by coaches from the University of Hawai`i. Between 70 and 80 kids participated in the clinics and other activities in Malama Park Saturday.

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Molokai at Hawaii World Series

Monday, July 24th, 2006

Molokai Baseball competes in the 2006 Hawaii World Series at the Central Oahu Reginal Park in Waipahu (Player photos at end of story).

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Keiki Show off their Barnyard Beauties

Thursday, July 20th, 2006

 

Last Friday and Saturday, some strange sounds came from Kaunakakai Baseball Park. Beyond the typical cheers and shouts, one could hear grunts, bleats, and bellowing. Molokai’s 4-H program came out in full force, as their participants competed for showmanship and market value of the animals they had raised.

An auction was held after the competitions. Grand Championship for market hot and goat, as well as championship awards in showmanship, went to Kaula Apuna, a sixth-grader at Kualapu`u Elementary. Already a veteran at age 10, Apuna has participated in the program for five years. The program has taught her responsibility, and how to take care of things and people around her.

“If you treat the animals nice, they’ll treat you nice back,” Apuna said. For the past three months, she fed and walked all her animals two times a day, first thing in the morning and once in the evening. At auction, animals raise a price anywhere from $2 to $3 per pound, with limits on the total weight payable according to the different categories. The Grand Champion for the Steer Junior Showmanship was 14-year-old Maluhia Mendes, who has been involved in 4-H since she was 8, and knows what it takes to place.

“I kept my animal calm, kept eye contact with the judge, and set him up correctly,” Mendes said. eisha Pico, 17, was surprised she placed first in the Steer Senior Showmanship.

“I thought the judge wasn’t paying attention to me because he wasn’t looking at me,” Pico explained, who won for being calm and collected with her animal. Her steer’s name is Mufasa, after the king of the jungle in the Lion King.

“He was so wild; he wouldn’t let anyone touch him,” Pico said. “He had never seen a man before.” When she first got him, he weighed 700 pounds. By competition day he was up to 1,320 pounds. “At first I was kind of sad,” Pico said regarding the auctioning of Mufasa.

 “But I need money to go to college.” Mufasa sold for $3.70 per pound, which was a lot more than Pico had hoped for. Now, thanks to 4-H, going to college for Pico has grown from a possibility to a reality. Awards Night for the 4H winners will be held August 24, at the Molokai Yacht Club. Also at that time, the Herdsmanship awards and the Record Book awards will be announced.

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GOT WATER?

Thursday, July 20th, 2006

Part 4: A serious look into current water issues finalizes the series.

Water is critical to our existence on this little island called Molokai in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, but many times it’s mired in law. Most of Hawaii’s water laws are based on English common law with a Hawaiian twist that includes native gathering rights. In the state constitution it states, “The State reaffirms and shall protect all rights, customarily and traditionally exercised for subsistence, cultural and religious purposes and possessed by ahupua`a tenants who are descendants of native Hawaiians who inhabited the Hawaiian Island prior to 1778, subject to the right of the State to regulate such rights”.

In 1990, the State Legislature enacted the State Water Code that established a priority of water rights, with Hawaiian Homesteaders and taro farmers on their ancestral lands at the top of this list. Hawaiian Homesteaders have first rights to this water and also the right to reserve water for future use of their lands. This priority is part of the state’s trust responsibility in enforcing and implementing the Hawaiian Homes Act of 1920, transferred to them by the federal government when Hawaii became a state. Yet on many occasions, the state agency responsible for enforcing the State Water Code, the Department of Land and Natural Resources Commission on Water Resource Management (CWRM), has not interpreted the law correctly.

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Obon Festival 2006

Tuesday, July 18th, 2006

At the annual Obon Festival last Saturday night, the air around the Mitchell Pauole Center reverberated with a life of its own. Under colorful Japanese lanterns that swung above, Taiko performers danced and drummed the night away.

But they weren’t the only ones in action. Dancers from missions in O`ahu and on Molokai mixed with others from the community, old and young, stepping in synchronization around the stage.

“It’s wonderful to see the young people really getting into it,” Lisa Takata, president of the Molokai Guzeiji Soto Mission, said.

The festival is not only a time of drumming and dancing, but of honoring one’s ancestors.

“It’s a time to show them appreciation for what they have done for you for generations,” Takata said.

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Letter to the Editor: Not Just Hot Bread

Sunday, July 16th, 2006

What’s the common advice given to many visitors to Molokai? It’s raved about in numerous travel books, posted on websites and passed on excitedly through word of mouth: “Make sure you go get hot bread at Kanemitsu Bakery.” As I boarded the early morning flight from Oahu, I looked forward to experiencing this quintessential activity later on that evening. Instead, I was treated to so much more that I anticipated. My first visit to “the friendly isle” can seldom be read about in travel books and websites or pre-packaged in a tourist’s itinerary. To go to a place where development has not destroyed the beauty of this isle and where culture has not been mass commercialized, is to arrive in Molokai. After coffee and pastries I met up my friend Noelani Lee and the Ka Honua Momona team to take part in the community workday on the fishpond at Kalokoeli.
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