Hawaii's Magic Black Book That Travelled Across The Pacific Oceanic Islands.

*Consistent with the cult classic Moleskine brand (the World's favourite notebook), 1% of any prize money awarded to this story is to be directed toward the planet - specifically, to the responsible management of Earth's forests. The Moleskine is Forestry Stewardship Council certified.

I dedicate this story to Maria Sebregondi (the cofounder of Moleskine). Thank you Maria for resurrecting and repopularizing the travel diary. As an Italian school teacher from Rome, you read Bruce Chatwin's book about Australian Aboriginal metaphysics, called The Songlines. As you sailed to Tunisia in 1995, you read this author's complaint of a Paris store that sold the increasingly rare and disappearing classic moleskine diary. As a result, you created the Moleskine company in Milan to remedy the circumstance. I wrote this fictitious story for you, in travel diary fashion, about Hawaiian star grids, Australia’s aborigine dream tracks (songlines), and Polynesia’s expert Pacific navigators who are genius at sailing amongst 8,222 Pacific Oceanic Islands.

August 21st, 1859.

Hawaii’s Hōkūleʻa “red star” or Kapuahi “sacred fire” star compass lights up the twinkling night sky, illuminating eight archipelago islands, and setting optic fire to two or three sparkling islets, coral reefs, and shoals in the North Pacific region. The Hawaiian island cluster glistens in the moonlight, adjacent but scattered with precision as if divinely cast like lustrous jewels across the Pacific Ocean. Hawai'i, Maui, Koho'olawe, Moloka'i, Lana'i, O'ahu, Kaua'i and Ni'ihau awaited adventure, fun, and a newfangled discovery for a crew of courageous Polynesian ladies. What could they discover there? The answer was an ancient magic black travel book that the Polynesians claimed really existed.

Four girls sailed together making a totally complete crew. There was Ailani, Eleu, Keilani, and Koa. They make their voyage in a skillfully crafted sailboat to find this magic treasure. Hidden inside the magic black book was rumoured to be 63700 keneta ($20,000 modern day United States dollars) that could be awarded to them upon discovery. The monetary reward had apparently become bygone treasure after Australian Aborigines travelled along dream tracks, or songlines, that covered a vast coastline of up to 8,222 Pacific Oceanic Islands. During that trek, after the indigenous canoe had enjoyed a renaissance in Aborigine Australia, a typhoon hit and the canoe capsized killing the entire crew at impact. The treasure was currently hidden because a dangerous sea squall took the tides up the Pacific to Hawaii carrying the magic black book and gold coins inside the canoe remanence.

Songlines, or dream tracks, are a kind of route across the stars, ocean, and land. Aborigines from Australia think ancestors travel songlines as creator-spirits to construct the routes meant for the physical world to travel. Made from the spirit realm, the dream tracks coexist in the exact same space that the physical dimension does. Therefore, Ailani, Eleu, Keilani, and Koa wanted to utilize the Hawaiian star grids that ran parallel to the dream tracks, or songlines, to navigate toward their destination.

Marine debris littered the coasts. Seaweed, glass, driftwood, and shell fragments tend to wash up onto the sandy shore of Ni’ihau, where the girls began to expertly navigate toward from Hawai’i. They knew their work could be cut out for them to scan, rake, and rescue the treasure of gold coins, and magic black book.

Ailani was high chief, and the captain of this voyage. Eleu could be described as an alert and lively girl. She was there for the adventure. Keilani and Koa were muscular twin sisters. Keilani had leadership potential and Koa was a warrior – brave, and fearless. All the girls had hazel eyes like limpid golden pools, and radiant jet-black heads of hair.

The girls knew Hawaii’s sacred red giant in the celestial sphere was one star that appeared as a star line pointing the girls through the rest of the memorized positions from the star grid sky map. The girls' brains had organized the star grid into four quarters: Ke Ka or Makali‘i ("The Canoe-Bailer of Makali‘i"), Iwikuamo‘o ("Backbone"), Manaiakalani ("The Chief's Fishline"), Ka Lupe o Kawelo ("The Kite of Kawelo"). Their remembered sequence of each quadrants was geometric.

First, the girls navigated the Ke Ka curve, affectionately called “The Canoe Bailer”. Second, they took a direct course along a straight line or Iwikuamo’o “Backbone”. After that, the girls could make a fishhook at Manaiakalani, followed by that kite directed by the Great Sphere of Pegasus constellation.

At last! The girls all reached Ni’ihau! Together, all four searched up and down the coast at the beach for any sign of wherever the treasure could be discovered. After 3 hours, Alani noticed a palm tree trunk that had a carving right on the bark. Strange pictographic designs like swirls and curls etched into a certain design looked akin to an arrow pointing at a different palm tree. The girls followed eight palm trees in total, resulting in the discovery of the string to a hatch underneath the sand. Keilani and Koa dug through the sand and broke into the hatch. A relatively tiny staircase down beneath them led to a chest that was clearly visible from above.

Eleu retrieved the treasure chest and all four girls opened it together. There inside, was a magic black book, sitting upon a mountain of gold coins. Ailani reached for the magic black book. Different cultures from around the globe had written inside it to tell tales of travelling across the Earth. IT was written in diverse regional dialects.

The girls grinned with delight reading thrilling adventures recorded in the magic black book from about 8222 different Pacific islanders. As the quartet of girls decided to return home, they could not wait to add their own travel to the book for future descendants in different countries to discover. It became a happy day and Ailani, Eleu, Keilani and Koa rejoiced. They knew this would be the first of much more diary-recorded travel adventures together.