Voyage organizers didn’t have much chance to rest once the Indian Ocean leg ended. Arguably even greater risk and more volatility lay ahead in the waters off southern Africa.

Crews gave themselves a two-month window to carefully make the 3,007-mile journey from Mauritius to Cape Town, ducking in and out of harbors when the weather was safe. The Gershon II would often tow the Hokule‘a in places where the dangers of sailing proved too high.

Early in the leg, a fast-moving storm prevented the Hokule‘a and Gershon II from stopping in Madagascar and forced it to instead head for shelter in Maputo Bay, Mozambique, north of its planned landfall in South Africa.

The canoe then resumed schedule, stopping in South African ports such as Richards Bay and Durban. In Mossel Bay, almost directly on the other side of the world from Hawaii, canoe crews representing one of the youngest cultures in the world visited caves where prehistoric people developed tools and art — the origin of modern humanity.

In a powerful, intimate ceremony, Kamehameha Schools and Halau Ku Mana Public Charter School students chanted Hawaiian creation stories and danced hula in those Mossel Bay seaside caves as waves crashed on the rocks outside.

“The feeling is kind of indescribable,” Halau Ku Mana student Lennon Helekahi said of the experience. “It’s like being home for a long time.”

Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu greeted the Hokule‘a, its crews and the Hawaii students after the canoe arrived in Cape Town. He met with the group on two occasions: a harbor-side ceremony with the Hokule‘a and several days later at his nearby offices.

“You have come from the newest civilization to the cradle of humanity. You have journeyed home,” Tutu’s daughter, the Rev. Mpho Tutu, told the crew during its visit to the bustling African city at the southern edge of the world. “The voyage of the Hokule‘a reconnects us to each other on a primal level.”