Sailors from Palau and Taiwan are making a historic trip in a traditional double-hulled voyaging canoe. They are sailing from Palau in the Southwest Pacific to Taiwan's outlying Orchid Island to revive ancient cultural links between the two island countries.
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00:00Can you tell us a little bit more about your voyage using traditional seafaring techniques
00:05to travel between Palau and Taiwan? This journey from Palau to Taiwan is
00:11it's going to be our first in history to sail from Palau to Taiwan and it's a little bit of
00:19trying to connect all the Pacific islands together and mainly it's a cultural exchange
00:29between Taiwan and Palau. It's a Taubo hull Polonese and fortune canoe as compared to my
00:36cruise and fortune canoe is only a single hull with albigham limited space for supplies so
00:43nice you can carry at least three months supplies on board yes we do have a motor on board just to
00:51take us out from the channels and then when we are out there and then we mainly use the sail.
00:58And your destination is Taiwan's Orchid Island home to the indigenous Dao people who share some
01:04cultural and linguistic similarities with people in Palau and other places in the Pacific.
01:10What do you expect to find on Orchid Island?
01:13I think Orchid is one of the islands that they still keep their culture with the building their canoes
01:21and there's until now they're still building canoes. So it's been arranged that we need to stay in Orchid for three days
01:31just to exchange culture doing cultural exchange and then we'll move on to Taitung where the main event
01:38will be big or coming. So it is Taitung and Orchid community decision that we need to start in Orchid and that
01:51pretty much is going to be underside to answer the questions but it's just about connection between us and Taitung and Orchid.
02:00And on a personal level why did you want to make this voyage?
02:04So I'm not sure if it's our ancestors up there telling you need to go here to the connection here
02:13because being all over the world just by doing talk on navigation. I really don't have an idea
02:22reason why I'm there but I always believe that it happens for a reason so and I believe the importance
02:31of it is it's all about connecting all all the islands together as you know as we do understand
02:41that Australians as we came from it begins from the Taiwan and maybe we're heading toward the truth
02:48that that's why these trips are happening and we all understand that all the small island nations are
02:57connected by the ocean.