Less Is More-Tea for The Tillerman

       Here lies Lester Moore, four slugs from a forty-four, no Les, no Moore!   More or less!         The vessle's name is " Wierd"! As in whiskey-indian-echo-romeo-delta.  Owner Mike, was bringing her home from Thailand, where he had had her built.  This teak-decked fiberglass hull, 40' sloop with an American Samoan  registry , needed crew to deliver her to San Diego from the Ala Wai, Oahu, Hawaii.  I answered the ad and signed on as first mate and navigator.  I met Mike and his wife at "The Chart House".  For those who aren't familiar with this resturante/bar, it has great pupus ( hawaiian for finger foods) that are free with drinks during Happy Hour.  My first clue that things might go south is when Mike told me he and his wife would buy one drink and were living off the excellant food offered by " The Chart House" !  Less is more.  No money, fully fed! Mike picked up  other crewmembers which he charged to sail to the Mainland.  Paying crew.  The four-cylindyer, volkswagen deisel blew off Lanai!  Of course we were in a tropical downpour at the time.  You needed a hardhat to avoid blackeyes or braindamage!  We limp back to Oahu under sail and run agound at Keihei lagoon!  Needless to say that when the Coast Guard towed us to their dock our crew vanished without even asking for a refund.  Captain scores!  Less is more.  Mike can't afford the price he was quoted for the engine repair.  When he didn't listen to me and ran us aground at the entrance to Kehei I could have left him to his own devices.  I like sailing.  So when he asked me if I would consider sailing without a motor from Hawaii to San Diego in Febuary, I had to think about it!!!   So I thought about it for a long time!  It actually became a  fork in, not just my life but in Jack's also!  He decided to sail with me and the owner, three people, leaving Hawaii to San Diego in February without a motor.!!!  Oh!  What fun!                                                                                                                                      

Doctor Hyde and Mr Jyekel/ Robert Louis Stevenson

      It was a lousy year but a good year.  Sailing led some major creating artists to abandon the culture and lifestyle their piers thought were importente!  Sorry my limited Spanish got away from me!  And of course, a thought process and their health but I really love Gougan's pastels of naked polyneiseians!  And the man who wrote, some will say, after doing cocaine, while in the hospital suffering from whatever, a book that is totally out of character relative to everything else he had written!   Hell people!  What do you think?  I, personally am a gemini!  Yea, steriotypic, the twins!  I never saw it that way but what do I know?  I'm the guy who reads the books great guys and girls write.  So Stevenson gets buried on an island of Samoa, near a city named Apia.  People who visit Samoa don't even realize what Samoa is about!  Why should they?  America runs Pago Pago. Pronounced Pongo-Pongo!   It is called American Samoa.  New Zealand ( oh! What a powerful country! )  lets say owns or monitors an island and  The hotel, Aggie Gray's,  in a city called, Apia, Samoa.  So what the hell is the island of Savai?  Oh yea, it is the Kingdom of Samoa!  Now here is the real story!  How do you get permission to sail to a country that has a king?  He, the king, already realizes that you, the traveler/trader have a history of lies and  broken promises!  AND and this is a big AND!  A word called, shush-aculteration.......So there it is!  Everyone on the face of the Earth are racest!  SP!  I will bet you that no matter who your father is he does not want his daughter or son marrying outside of his/hers ethnic heiritage!  So you can alternate or transpose the ethnic/cultural names I am about to place exactly where they belong-on the killing floor!  so matey or mate as they say down under, Gid day! What does that mean? Now, if I said, "it depends", I could sound like a bloody politician! So here is the deal, the real deal!!! A prick is a prick! They come in all shapes and colors! They ( liars, destorters of the truth ) love lying! I have found while sailing on the oceans of this world that the countries, islands and people that I have been fortunate to spend time with have opened my eyes to an understanding that people are wonderful but governments suck! I knew that already so I went deep into the ocean. I found a truth. My wish is that we can survive the bullshit government serves us as a survival plan against a common foe they chose! Who is the enemy? Sociology 101!!!! I swear to you, people of the world, If anyone would listen, I would print the same phoney money the U.S. is printing and build a subway sandwich shop in Salt Lake City , Utah and serve coffee! I'm running out of gas but not story imput. I've sailed into precarious places and enjoyed the many diversified cultures I visited. I've learned that an asshole is an asshole regardless of race, position, creed or color! Welcome to the world that even Captain James Cook sailed under! Where's my grog?

Kauai, Hawaii....New Century

      I guess I could be disappointed if I landed at Lihue today?  Maybe in a short period of time a lot has changed!!  To the people who lived through the two hurricanes, tourism overtaking agriculture as the #1 industry,  the developement of a new Hanalei and the ramifications of what all this means- it was gradual.  I'm laughing inside as I am writing this because.....  I am afraid !  I believe it was Stienbeck who wrote, " When one tries to recapture the fires of the past, one often returns to find ashes"!  It could have been Hemingway!  I moved to Kalaheo, Kauai from Waimea, Oahu in 1968.  Kaneshiro Camp.  Red clay, cold mossy showers, $ 15 a/month rent, Tommy and Johnnie, two local brothers beating each other up each night and making up the next morning only, to repeat the same scenario again and again!  Across from them lived Tom ( guitar ) and Sheily with Stan ( the harmonica man ) playing deep southern blues  The camp is gone.  Ralph Young lived there.  So did Larry Byfield.  Larry died this year. Damn it! Ralph lives on and has managed to combine the southernmost island of polynesia with the northernmost! (another story)..  Imagine this picture.  I land at Lihue X.  I don't recognize anything!  I have a nice 6'8' tri-fin Brewer in a shoulder- over/ board bag!  My back pack in tow, my thumb is out!  I called no-one and of course he answered!!.  What am I going to see when I get a ride?  So!  Is it memory row or is it time to make some new ones?  Time will tell!  One thing about Kauai-- I know I won't be disappointed!!  Valdez is coming!!!!

Arrh, mateys, the rum has me now

       I have been blessed, to have had the oppurtnity to sail, not all; but a small portion of the largest ocean of this world!  The Pacific Ocean is vast and those who sail on that water are above what is below!  You think I joke!?  I know what I am speaking of and I also have the knowledge of what I am speaking against!  People of this world have inheirant qualities that define the essence of their very being.  We trade, we laugh, we enjoy each others individuallity!  Who says what is good or right?  Simple Government.  It's funny to me when one day you are a freedom fighter and the next day you become a pirate!  Overnight.  Yea.  You think right now, that this asshole doesn't have a leg to stand on.  Historically I'll kick your ass!  But really what I don't want to do is that-but fuck with me and I will destroy you.  See-I am a pirate.  It's a thought process. I sailed not the seven seas but the world outside of a complacency.  I wanted to sea if the ocean really covered as much space as the flat round ball on my wall matched my imagination!  A pirate is anybeing.  To " question", to "Go against the Flow", to " Think Outside the Box". To " Dream".!!!  When a country declares " WAR" on another country pirates are born!  Peace is determinined by governments?  I think not!!!  All historical pirates only became pirates when the particular governments came into an equation of peace.  So, overnight without a cellphone peace between territoral governments had entered into a treaty or agreement that I, a sailor, citizen, with God country at heart must honor.  To a degree, I might add.  Secretly, under the table, continually, take ships from France and Spain and their treasures but if caught England did not condon this extreme act of piracy.  So what has changed?  Nothing.  Why should it?  It works.  What I despize are the lies!  Graft, payola!  Whoop the fucking doo, Simoncy allows a catholic to pay for his way to heaven.  Ask " the pope"  he'll tell you all about Peter and how he's" The Rock"!  I really have no fondness for certain parts of the history of man.  What Catholics are not honing up to about " The Inquisition", 400 years with another 100 from Spain is unacceptable.  Who are or were the pirates?  Thief of hearts!  What are " The Dark Ages"?  Check your country out now!  Welcome to piracy of the lowest order.  Remember King George, the turd, sorry the third!  Boston ( not my favorite place ) tea party, taxation without representation?  Welcome to today!  Who said, "History can not repeat itself" ?  Not me.  Welcome to my world fellow PIRATE!!!  arrh matey!!!

sailin or sailaway!

        I always thought about thought.  Thinkinking about words.  Win one thinks about two, one is married!  I thought about two but it became four.  I sailed away but did I?  Did I sail towards or away from?  Sea?  I don't see what befailed me!  Now I live in------the land of where you are.  I have traveled. Oh so far!  To  a place that seemed so near and yet is distance, itself,  befriended me, So back on the shelf to begin again a thing I abhor, to run aground on a distant shore, Where love itself is on a shore where all Sirens meow to sailors and find a want that Homer spoke of!  The tales of gods in the plural , the Cycolops. Neptunes world!  The equater of the earth itself, Is nothing more than thought itself and I always thought about thought!! And then I forgot.................Not

navigator/cartoligist/father/husband-James Cook

The Demise Of Captain Cook


by Betty Fullard-Leo



Captain Cook Monument in Kealakekua Bay.

The bay at Kealakekua is so translucent, so placid, that scores of novice snorkelers slip into the water daily, arriving by boats from Kailua-Kona, which anchor, bobbing peacefully, just beyond the obelisk that marks a far more violent episode in Hawaiian history. It was here that the great navigator Captain James Cook was killed on February 14, 1779.



Cook and his crew had sailed through the Hawaiian Islands little more than a year earlier when they anchored off Kaua'i to re-provision his flagship Resolution and a smaller vessel, Discovery. This was Cook's third Pacific voyage, but his first to explore the North Pacific. It was the voyage that earned him credit as the first westerner to discover the Hawaiian Islands.



When the British ships sailed past O'ahu to Kaua'i in January 1778, they were met by a fleet of canoes filled with Islanders prepared to do battle. Luckily, Cook and his men had learned a bit of Tahitian months earlier. Tahitian was close enough to the Hawaiian dialect so the two groups could communicate, and when Cook gave gifts, the Hawaiians realized he had come in peace. The boats had been anchored for three days at Waimea Bay, Kaua'i, where the crews had discovered that Hawaiian women gave freely of their sexual favors. While there, the High Chief Kaneoneo returned from across the island to board the Discovery and meet Captain Charles Clerke before the two English ships left Waimea, headed for Alaska and Canada. Cook had anchored off Kaua'i during the time of makahiki, a period of months set aside for the collection of taxes in the form of produce, crafts and other goods, while war was suspended and ceremonies and games were the order of the day. There are, however, no notations in Cook's logs that indicate he knew anything about the makahiki season or its peaceful traditions. Ten months later, he returned from the north, badly in need of provisions and a safe harbor to repair his ships. It was November; once again it was the makahiki season. Cook dropped anchor first off Maui, where a meeting with King Kahekili went well. The Hawaiians were pleased to obtain valuable iron nails to fashion into fishing hooks, as well as iron tools, in trade for food and water.





An interpretation of Hikiau Heiau, the temple at Kealakekua Bay, based on 1779 descriptions Painting by Herb Kawainui Kane.

Near Hana, Cook's ships were met by King Kalaniopu'u, who had been warring against Kahekili, but because of the makahiki, the fighting had been suspended. Eight of Kalaniopu'u's chiefs (among them the young Kamehameha) remained on board to direct Cook to the Big Island. From his reception, Cook surmised that swift canoes had raced across the channel to forewarn the Big Islanders of his arrival. Off the northern shore of the Big Island, near Waipi'o Valley, canoes laden with men waving white banners paddled out to greet them. During makahiki, white kapa banners were always hung for ceremonies and displayed at heiau around the islands. Next came young women dressed in their finest kapa, and canoes loaded with "pigs, fruit and roots."



The ships were re-provisioned, but unable to make landing. Cook chose to circumnavigate the Big Island around the windward side, extending his journey far beyond the few days it would have taken for him to reach Kealakekua Bay sailing to the lee. The Islanders, and presumably King Kalaniopu'u, were happy with the decision, as at each seaside village canoes paddled out to trade for valuable western goods. By the time the Discovery and the Resolution, with torn sails and rotting lines, were able to enter Kealakekua Bay for repairs, they were surrounded by possibly 1,000 canoes and thousands of people swimming or on surfboards.



Captain William Bligh, Cook's sailing master, who would later go down in history as captain of the mutinous crew of the Bounty, was sent ahead to check the depth of the bay and to find fresh water, thus becoming the first European to actually set foot on Hawaiian soil.



Cook invited one of the Hawaiian elders to dine with him and received a pig and a red tapa cloak in return. Lieutenant James King kept detailed journals of the proceedings. When Cook went ashore, with King in the retinue, King wrote, "...[We] were received by 3 or 4 men .....who kept repeating a sentence wherein the word E Rono was always mention'd, this is the name by which the Captn has for some time been distinguish'd by the Natives."



Early historians determined that Cook had been mistaken for the god Lono, most closely associated with the makahiki, but later scholars and Hawaiians cast doubt on the idea. One theory sometimes advanced is that Hawaiians were saying, "E rono," translated as "listen" or "attention," which they called out to attract the crowd's attention to Cook's presence and his important stature.



Cook was led to a heiau, the same rock temple called Hikiau that can be found at Kealakekua Bay today, to take part in an elaborate ceremony, at the conclusion of which he was made to bow to the ground and kiss an image of the war god Ku.



Cook was not the only one to be treated with honor; Captain Clerke was also led to the temple, and a small pig was sacrificed to him, accompanied by an elaborate ceremony and chanting.



Nine days passed before the Big Island king appeared, accompanied by a long line of sailing and paddling canoes. The British were surprised that the king was none other than their old friend Kalaniopu'u, who had settled in the village where about 125 dwellings were occupied by chiefs. This is the same area that holds the monument to Captain Cook today.





The following morning, the king boarded the Resolution from his own 70-foot canoe. He was surrounded by chiefs attired in bright red-and-yellow feather cloaks and helmets and accompanied by canoes carrying chanters, feather idols, and provisions.





While their ships were repaired, the British camped in a nearby sweet potato field, and some attempted to learn about the Hawaiian culture; others, like Surgeon's Mate David Samwell, learned lascivious songs from the young Hawaiian women and enjoyed feasts and boxing exhibitions, typical makahiki past times.



When Cook ordered the king to purchase the wooden railings atop the heiau they were freely given, possibly because the makahiki season was drawing to a close and the ceremonial structures would soon have been dismantled anyway. The British ships sailed away on February 4, but within days a gust of wind had broken the Resolution's main mast and Cook had to return. By then the time of peace was past.



The mast was hauled ashore; all the while, Islanders continually pilfered from Cook's ships. When an Islander was spotted making off with a pair of blacksmith's tongs from the Discovery, British sailors rowed ashore in pursuit of his canoe. They tried to confiscate his canoe to hold until their tongs were returned, but the canoe's owner came out and was struck with an oar. Hawaiians retaliated by throwing stones.



Cook, with Lieutenant King and a marine, came down the beach to intervene, and the three Britishers set off in pursuit of the man with the tongs, but they were misled and laughed at by the Hawaiians. Cook ordered the sentries to reload their fine-shot to the more deadly ball ammunition.



When a boat was discovered missing from the Discovery on February 14, ill feelings escalated. The British fired cannons at canoes in the bay and Cook went ashore with some sailors to try to bring Kalaniopu'u back to the Resolution as a hostage. A crowd had gathered by the water's edge when, at the far end of the bay, a shot rang out from one of the British boats, and the chief Kalimu, standing in his canoe, was killed. The Hawaiians began to don their war clothing and, when a challenging motion was made toward Cook, he turned and fired his musket. Then his marines fired. When the king's guards charged, the marines, who had no time to reload, headed for the water. Many of the men, like Cook, could not swim.





The death of Cook, February 14, 1779. Painting by Herb Kawainui Kane.

The recorded details are not exact, but it is thought that Cook was struck with a club from behind, then stabbed repeatedly with an iron dagger that had been obtained from the British in trade by a chief named Nua.





Following Cook's death, five British sailors were killed, and four Hawaiian chiefs and thirteen kanaka maoli (commoners) died, before cannon fire from the British ships forced everyone to leave the beach. Captain Clerke, suffering from tuberculosis, took command and had repairs completed to the foremast on deck. He asked repeatedly for Cook's body, only to learn through friendly Hawaiian priests that it had been cut into pieces and the bones stripped of flesh; as was the Hawaiian custom in the treatment of the remains of a high chief. Islanders believed that the keeper of such bones inherited the mana, the spiritual power, of the deceased.





Animosity continued, with Hawaiians on shore taunting the British sailors, until three days later. On the 17th of February, Clerke fired cannons toward the shoreline. Two chiefs came to the ships to discuss peace, but that same evening, British sailors who came onshore to replenishing their fresh water, were pelted with rocks. The sailors burned an unprotected village and cut off the heads of two Hawaiians, displaying them on poles, until Captain Clerke had them deposited into the ocean to show that the British were not cannibals.



The following evening, a truce was declared. Some of the remains of Captain Cook were returned to the British, which Clerke deposited in a weighted box and sank in Kealakekua Bay. Kalaniopu'u is said to have kept Cook's long bones and jaw, and the young warrior Kamehameha was given the hair.



The Hawaiians questioned what the British would do and they wanted to know when Erono would return. In early history books, these questions were often said to indicate that the Hawaiians considered Cook the god Lono, while others say it only indicated they feared retribution from Cook's ghost, as ghosts were very real to them.



Clerke and his men sailed north after further provisioning off Kaua'i, but Clerke died off Siberia before returning to his native land. In England, the story of Cook became a legend, and he was immortalized in books and in a French stage play: "La Mort du Captain Cook". The story that Hawaiians believed Cook was their god Lono was commonly accepted. With the blurring of history, it is a question that probably never will be settled completely.



I believe that James Cook is the embodiment of Lono.  Hunter S who is as whacked as a human can be/ wrote one of his " Fear and Loathings"  called "  The Curse of Lono"!  It's not just that!  I lived on Kauai for twenty years.  I became a sailor from a surfer/diver/fisherman.  I married my wife in Australia and continued to N.Z.  I sailed through the " South Seas"!  I married a " Kiwi"!  What did I learn in my travels?  Captain Cook has a statue or a pass everywhere I've been.  I visit my sister in Anchorage, Alaska and there is James.( a statue )  I sail to New Zealand and here is- the "Cook Straits", seperating the North Island from the South!   My wife delivers a boat to Cooktown, Aus, where after sailing through one of the two passes (Grafton)he finally ran aground, off loaded cannon, ballast- goes up the river and fixes (as in survives ) his boat so that the town with a museum is named " Cooktown"! I sailed from Samauri to Cairns and even with a chart that was a bad ass entry!  But Cook found that entry by exploration!  He designed the charts that I read! Yea, Jim is "ono"with the " L "!!  Everywhere I sailed in the Pacific Ocean or have been, I run across his name.  He died when he was 51 but oh! how he lived!  This man covered a lot of territory and did it with style.  He was a smart sailor that left a heritage to be admired and to be lived up with!  So be it!

Why? Captain James Cook Rules?

    Do you believe in mystery?  A man lives and dies and lives!  That is what is said and sometimes believed- about Jesus, the Christ!  Regardless of what I believe or know- you must believe in something!  I believe in un-belief as much as I have faith in my belief!.  My values  have the luxury of contemplating a mystery.  It is simple.  I can do nothing to earn or buy the thing that I want and can't afford.  But becauseI have faith- I can have what I want and also know I can't afford it but still desire to have it!  Can it be?  The answer is Yes!    It's like this.  If I owe a friend of mine money but another friend pays my debt for me, do I still have debt?  Here lies the paradox. My debt has been paid but I didn't pay it!  Do I owe the person who paid my debt for me? At the very least, do I owe the price paid that I Could Not Pay?    How could a man live for 51 years and do the things Captain Cook did?  This man gathered a scientific commnity together when a country,  thought water, and the  taking of showers was a harmful thing.  George, the Third, of England, hadn.t even decided yet that it would be better to let " the colonies go" and defeat the " Frogs ", their arch rivils! It is around this time that Benjiman Franklin expressed the future of a new country by politically stating in regards to a fellow explorer he had met, James Cook, who is flying the flag of England, this quote, " not consider her an enemy, nor suffer any plunder to made of the effects in her, nor obstruct her immediate return to England by detaining her or sending her into any other part of Europe or America but that you treat the said Captain Cook and his people with all civility and kindness, affording them, as common friends to mankind, all the assistance in your power which they may stand to be in need of."  Here is the beauty of the Mystery!  There have been key events, historically that have altered or shaped thought processes en masse throughout time.  I always love the pure quotes written by the  so called ' " Enemy " .  I'm sure I know who the enemy is.  Ignorance!  Rebellion!  In the pursuit of knowledge, real knowledge, which is a far cry from the " Art of "One-Up-Man Ship", we all in the pursuit of a transforming truth find ourselves amongst a divine family on a quest or adventure into the " Great Unkown ", and that Is The Divine Mystery, my friends!  Step to it!!!!!  James cook was torn apart in Hawaii, thought to be a minor God, Lono, a white or light skinned god!  Ben Franklin provided "his"vessel free port and yet when Ben wrote that secruity clearence, Jim was dead!  The boat returned to England the other way, South Africa, The cape of Good Hope, circumventing the up coming violence that would change the face of the world as they new it!  At that time!  So be it!