Adam Skolnick

On a crisp spring day I drove past the stucco subdivisions, commuter trains, and skate parks of suburban West Auckland and considered the following, seemingly innocuous, question: “Am I okay with deep bodywork?” Atarangi Muru, a world renowned Maori tohunga (traditional healer) from New Zealand, posed it to me three different times over the past [...]

Captain Stan has spoken. It’s time to open the sails as we shove off from Doubtless Bay on a waka horua, a traditional Polynesian catamaran, built from two massive dugout canoes lashed together and bridged by an expansive deck. Opening its sails requires coordinated effort from all 14 on board. The masts are heavy, shaped from one piece of solid timber. We push and pull and seconds later, with the masts secured, the sails unfurl.