Images of Old Hawaiʻi

by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Fifteen Days in the Islands

In January, 1778, Captain Cook was travelling from Christmas Island (“As we kept our Christmas here, I called this discovery Christmas Island” (Cook,)) heading across the north Pacific to the Oregon coast of North America. He wasn’t looking for Hawai‘I, but saw it and landed on Kauai.

Then, “after spending more time about these islands than was necessary to have answered all our purposes, we were obliged to leave them before we had completed our water and got from them such a quantity of refreshments as their inhabitants were both able and willing to have supplied us with.” The Discovery and Resolution left Hawai‘i on February 2, 1778.

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A Connecticut Yankee in Captain Cook’s Crew

John Ledyard, the son of a ship captain, was born in Groton Connecticut in 1751. He grew up in thriving New London County, where the West Indian trade made fortunes for enterprising merchants and captains. When he was 11, his father and an uncle died at sea. He went to live with his grandfather, then […]

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Scurvy

“(A) sailor’s diet consisted of salted fish and meat, dried vegetables, weeviled biscuits and rancid oils, cheese, and butter. … The caloric content – estimated at 2,500-3,000 calories – was adequate, but the diet was sorely deficient in vitamins.” “In the absence of vitamin C, rampant scurvy became responsible for thousands of sailors’ deaths and […]

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Circumnavigation of the World

With the impending departure of Hōkūleʻa and Hikianalia on their journey around the world “to learn, create global relationships, and explore how to care for our oceans and island earth,” (PVS) we recognize they are also following the footsteps of Hawaiʻi’s last king, Kalākaua, over a century ago in sharing the Islands with others. “O’er […]