Celebrating Hekenukumai Busby
Toi Maori celebrates in 2007 Hekenukumai Ngaiwi Puhipi Busby, MBE
- His knowledge and skills encompass the construction and navigation of voyaging canoes
- He led the 1974 relaunch of Ngatokimatawhaorua at Waitangi
- In 1992, he launched Te Aurere for its maiden voyage to Rarotonga
A builder of bridges.....into the Pacific
- Other voyages include Nukuhiva, Marquesas Islands and Hawai'i
- His favourite journey was in 1995 sailing with two trainee celestial navigators from the Marquesas Islands to Hawai'i
- He has an extrordinary record of having built 20 canoes
- He is based at Aurere in Doubtless Bay - the originator of the Kupe Waka Centre