In the early 1970s, the Polynesian Voyaging Society was moved to craft Hokule’a — a performance accurate double-hull voyaging canoe built in the traditional style of the native people of the region. The intent was to prove that Polynesian people intentionally navigated throughout the Pacific in a concerted effort to find new lands and settle them. When it was built, Hokule’a was the first vessel of its kind to sail the seas in over 600 years, and she makes her way without the benefit of compass, engine, or GPS. Since her launch in 1975, she has traveled as far as Japan and California. But, that simply wasn’t enough.
In May 2014, Hokule’a launched from Hawaii to sail around the world to ports in New Zealand, Australia, Africa, and North and South America as part of the Malama Honua voyage. Its mission was to raise awareness of global sustainability practices. After seeing the ship at his local harbor, photographer John Bilderback, a Surfer Magazine senior staff photographer for twenty years, was inspired to collaborate with author Jennifer Allen on a book documenting the four-year voyage. They recorded Hokule’a’s travels to 23 different countries, as well as her experiences in port. The book, Malama Honua: Hokule’a – A Voyage of Hope, forwards the narratives of crew members and master navigators, as well as local pioneers striving to maintain the planet in environmentally sound ways. It is, above all, the story of the connection between people and the planet.
Speaking to John Bilderback on the phone from his home in Hawaii, we asked about the years of work that went into creating this amazing text, including his time on the crew of Hokule’a. He also broke down his gear and what it takes to follow in his career footsteps.
The book feels as much like a coffee table photo book as it is a text.
Yeah, it’s unusual that way, isn’t it? And going in, that was sort of hard to visualize, you know? I didn’t know what the shape of this thing would be or anything about how it would be done so, it was hard. I go up in a helicopter and I’d have to line up Hokule’a and… say… the Sydney Opera House and I don’t know if I’m trying to frame a long rectangle or a square or what I’m really shooting for. It was unusual in that way; it’s kind of a hybrid between a photo book and a book of just text. But, I think we succeeded.
The editor and publisher get all the credit for its design. I couldn’t imagine trying to layout a design for a voyage that’s gonna take place over four years. It’s just such a big project. I come from a magazine background where our deadlines were every 30 days. This four-year deadline was a real, a real change.
How did you become involved in it?
I worked for Surfer Magazine for 20 years and built a career on shooting brave people doing incredible things in the ocean and when Hokule’a came through the state, before setting out to go around the world, she came to Haleʻiwa, where I live. I went down to just touch her. I knew only what every surfer knew about Hokule’a, which was that Eddie Aikau, our greatest waterman gave his life trying to save his fellow crew members. And, I wanted to go down and touch the canoe and feel that. I had no real designs on anything other than that and I went down and she was in the harbor. I looked at her and I started talking to the crew and they told me they learned how to circumnavigate.
I had done enough sailing in my life to know that a circumnavigation is a huge, risky, expensive undertaking. And dangerous, even on a modern boat with GPS and radar and things like microwave ovens to keep you happy. This was a canoe that’s three feet off the water, doesn’t have power or a toilet, and these people were going to sail it around the world. When I heard that, I was just astounded. I mean, who are these people? How did I not know about them before? Like, this is absolutely insane.
I left the harbor that day and couldn’t get it out of my head. I was so blown away by these people. They were doing something with so much meaning. You know? Their lives have so much meaning. I thought about everything that I had done in my life that people had praised me for and my little accomplishments. It all seemed so thin and so pale and so insignificant. When I went home that night there had been a little seed planted in my head that would change my life.
I needed to help these people. I didn’t know how or what I would do, but I knew I would do something to at least tell everybody, “Look at these people, look how brave they are. Look how committed they are. Look what they’re trying to do because they believe in trying to save the world.” You know? Wow. It made surfing seem less important in my life, suddenly. It drew me in, and I went home and talked to a writer friend of mine. I said, “Man, can you believe this story? Is this insane?” And, I mean insane in the best possible way. “Is this something we can help them with? Can we tell this story?” And she loved it. Her name is Jennifer Allen and she ended up writing the book.
We set it out to try and join the cause in some way. We approached the Polynesian Voyaging Society and said, “Hey is anybody doing a book? We’d love to do a book. Would that be something you would permit us to do?” And, they said, “Yes.” We were encouraged but confused by where to go next. You know? It’s a giant project to travel around the world trying to follow this canoe. The logistics are huge, and the cost, of course, will be reflected in that. The only company we could think of was Patagonia, and it just so happened that they had hired a new director of their book division, Karla Olson, who has a huge pedigree and had really set out to develop their book division.
The timing was great. We found out Patagonia’s submission process — it was a very elaborate, detailed, pitch process. We submitted, and I sat by the phone expecting the call to come and thinking up any number of reasons for them to pass. There were a hundred reasons they could’ve called me and said, “Hey, you know this is a great story but we’re gonna pass.” And it wouldn’t have surprised me; I would have said, “Thank you very much, I appreciate your time.” I wouldn’t have been devastated.
But, the call came, and they said, of all things, “Thank you for bringing this to us, we love it. Let’s do it.” And, there it was. My life changed right then. It was hard to really grasp in the beginning the commitment that they were willing to put into the project. Over the four years of working with them on this, I have to say it’s been an incredible privilege to work with people with so much vision and commitment to the planet and its people.
So, it was a fulfilling, nourishing journey just to work with those people. You know what I mean? Before we even left the dock, my hopes for humanity were already somewhat restored?
Okay, so four years but that’s not like four years of you and Jennifer on a boat following a canoe is it?
No, absolutely not. We couldn’t justify that for a lot of reasons. Plus, in the beginning, neither one of us was crew and every spot on the canoe was precious. Anybody that’s taking up resources better be delivering in terms of helping to sail the canoe. It took 18 months for me to train to become a core crew member and be blue water ready. But, no, in the beginning, we knew that what we’d need to do is pick where the stories would be and meet the canoe there. It was a huge challenge to look at a four-year sailing itinerary with like a hundred ports listed and try and go, “Okay, where are the best stories going to be?” But we could identify them to some degree.
The idea that Hokule’a was going to come to New York City blew my mind. In my mind, I could see the canoe and her sails and Manhattan behind it and there was no doubt we’d need to be there. And, there’s no doubt that we’d need to be in Tahiti, the heart of Polynesian navigating, and the Great Barrier Reef, where we knew the story would go under water. So, we set out with sort of a wish list of things that we’d like to see and the stories that we’d like to tell.
Then, we spent two or three weeks at each location and before flying home. I did photos and Jennifer wrote and we’d try and keep up so that we could produce the book the minute that the voyage finished. We created a lot of expense probably for Patagonia to pre-produce the book and then just wait for us to hand in the last chapter. But, they really wanted to do that so that they could release the book in a timely manner, right after the voyage concluded and the momentum was still strong.
I went to 15 ports in ten countries, and I sailed on five different legs on the voyage.
As an actual crew member?
As a crew member. You know, like I said, the resources are so precious. The water that you’re consuming and the space that’s available, you have to function as a crew member to be on board. There aren’t people that are just passengers. All of the TV crew, the production company, OIWI TV that covered the entire voyage, those guys were core crew members and worked two jobs the whole voyage. I can’t tell you how much respect I have for them. The conditions for filming or shooting on board the canoe are really difficult. You’re wet, it’s windy, there’s no office to keep your gear in. There’s no place to sit and dry off. It’s a real challenge to work. And, at the same time, when we need to change the headsail, they gotta drop their cameras and run up on the bow and put on a harness and get sails up.
The documentation goes hand in hand with living the experience and the OIWI guys, I have to say again, I have so much respect for them. How hard it was for them to do their job and they did it so well. They were role models for me. When I’d get on the canoe, I’d look and see what the OIWI guys were doing and try and be like one of them.
In my head, there was maybe a secondary media ship. Like, a safety vessel.
There was. There was an escort boat. She’s wonderful, we love her crew. Her name was Gershon 2. And they were absolutely key to the success of the mission. They followed patiently behind Hokule’a, for I don’t know how many thousand miles. Without them, there was no voyage. But, to be able to cover what’s going on the canoe, you really gotta be on the canoe. And, to bring the reader on board you’ve gotta be there yourself. So, it is a challenge and the conditions, like I say, they’re difficult.
Your background in surf photography has to help right?
I’m very familiar with water housings and working in wet conditions and all that. So, yeah, that helped for sure. A lot of layers of what the project needed to cover, the way I was looking at it in the beginning was you’ve got to tell the story, right? You’ve gotta support the story that Jennifer’s telling about Hokule’a and the people on board. But, you’ve also gotta show the places that we’re going to and why this world is so worth saving. You know what I mean? We had to have a layer of the reason we’re doing this is, “Look at how beautiful our world is. Look at how pristine this place is and we’ve gotta be good stewards. We’ve gotta rally everybody to take care of this.”
Then, there was the sort of day-to-day stuff on the canoe that you’re not gonna see any other way. In the moments of what it’s actually like to be a thousand miles from land on a 60-foot canoe with 12 people on board. That’s not an experience that most people have. It’s incumbent that the photos show that as well.
There’s such a variety of photography. You have wildlife stuff and then underwater stuff and portraits. How much gear are you bringing with you for all of that?
On the legs that I’m sailing, I’m not bringing very much at all. Maybe two pelican cases. But, on the legs that I’m just meeting them in port, I can bring everything. I can bring all the gear I want. And, like you observed, it’s a wide variety of things I have to be prepared for. There’s all the long lens stuff for the wildlife, there’s all the gear for stabilizing the helicopter shoot, there are all the water housings for the underwater shoots. You carry a lot of crap around for sure.
My experience with starting with it, if I don’t bring it I will want it. So, it’s better to just bring it and be burdened by it but have everything as an option.
Interesting. I talk to a lot of photographers and sometimes they’re like, “Oh, you don’t need all the gear.” And then other ones are like, “Yes, you do.”
You know what’s funny? Water photographers a lot of times get stuck in one little mode. They’ll take a fish eye lens and one water housing and that’s really how they do all their work. And that’s great, but I think you gotta be more of a generalist. My mentors always said, “You gotta be able to do more than just swim in a barrel and hold up a camera. You’ve gotta be able to shoot a person. You gotta be able to shoot a scene.”
There’s a lot more to it than just surf photography.
I’m sure. You wouldn’t have done it for 20 years if you weren’t like innovating and branching out and doing new things. If someone wanted to get into like ocean sports photography, what do you advise them to do?
I think the main thing is you gotta be comfortable in the ocean. If you’re gonna be shooting any kind of surf, for sure you better be a good swimmer and be pretty fit. And then I’d say also, have a vision. Look at what you like in photography and the kinds of things that you’d like to do and make those happen. You know what I mean? You’re working with a medium and a set of conditions that you can’t control at all, so you really have to be flexible. You have to have something in mind that you’re trying to do. There’s gotta be a plan or you just end up floating around not achieving your aims.
The people that I look to for my inspiration are versatile. They’re not just able to do one thing well, they’re able to apply a set of skills to whatever the job calls for. That’s what I’ve come to respect. Guys like Aaron Chang and Art Brew are people that were my mentors. I was always amazed at what consummate photographers they were. So, I think that’s what I aspire to.
So, now that the project has come to an end, what are you doing?
You know, I’m not really sure. I’m trying to catch my breath. I did learn so much on this voyage, and I learned it about myself and what I’d like to do with the time that I have here. And, I’ve seen the gravity that Hokule’a generates among people. Everywhere we went, people were drawn to her and drawn to this mission. That was probably the biggest takeaway for me: if you do good things, people will join you. And, so I want to find another thing to spend my time on that does some good. I can look at my daughter and say, “You know, I did this for you because we’ve made some mistakes and I want you to have it better than we have.” The nourishment that I’ve gotten sort of in terms of my own well-being, my own peace of mind and ability to sleep at night. It’s a selfish motive but I think that’s really the thing that I want to carry forward in my work, whatever it is.
I’ve had some reality TV show offers and a couple things have come up that I’m chewing on and seeing what develops. And I guess, the other thing that I feel strongly about is being a non-Hawaiian who lives in Hawaii. This is my home, it’s not my culture. It’s not the culture of my blood, but it’s the culture that I love and it’s the place that I want to care for. And so, as a person who doesn’t have Polynesian in his ancestry, it’s kind of hard to fit in. It’s kind of hard to feel worthy of being a guest here. So, I try as much as I can to give back. I know that I’m part of the problem. Hawaii is really suffering in a lot of ways and I feel for the people. I feel for the people whose home this is that can’t live here anymore. It tears me up inside that people have to move to Nevada because they can’t afford the taxes in their ancestral home.
It just seems so wrong. As a white guy, as a Haole, as a non-Hawaiian, it’s important that I be a worthy guest. So, I need to always find a way that I’m honoring my host here in Hawaii. Respecting them and their culture.
