Austin Kino: Waterman, Wayfinder, Steward: Honoring the ocean through tradition, community, and connection

Born and raised on O‘ahu, Austin Kino is a navigator, educator, and founder of Holokino Hawai‘i, where guests sail aboard traditional canoes and learn ancestral wayfinding. A lifelong waterman, Austin draws on generations of ocean knowledge to inspire cultural connection and environmental stewardship. His voyages honor heritage, build community, and deepen our shared reverence for the sea.

Claudia Lebenthal [CL]: What does it mean to be a waterman?

Austin Kino [AK]: It describes somebody whose passions lie in the ocean and how they are known in the community. What do you know about Austin? I know he loves anything and everything to do with the ocean.

CL: What are the watersports that you love to do?

AK: Of course with Hawaii being the birthplace of surfing, it’s probably one of the first things we all learn how to do. Surfing and paddling outrigger canoe are kind of like the foundation. We'll take kids in small canoes as young as 3 or 4 to paddle. That’s where they can start learning. Thats their first experience away from shore into the ocean on a surfboard or on an outrigger canoe.

CL: But it is more than just water sports?

AK: The ocean is not only for recreation. To find a way to make a living has to include the ocean. A lifeguard, fisherman. It’s a way of living. Their day to day intertwines with what the ocean is doing. There is always a huge give back element. You won’t find someone in the community who doesn’t have some kind of way to give back or clean up or protect the ocean resource.

CL: You have a sailing canoe and are helping to perpetuate the ancient Hawaiian Hokulea tradition. Can you tell us a little about that?

AK: Sailing canoes are starting to come back into popularity and are modeled on the Hokule’a, which is a replica of a traditional Hawaiian voyaging canoe. It is navigated without the use of any modern instruments and relies solely on an understanding of celestial wayfinding. In wayfinding you use everything from the sun, the waves, but at night we use the stars. Ancient Polynesians understood these cycles and were able to use their patterns to find a system of navigation that the Hokule’a is perpetuating. It reminds Hawaiians of their heritage. Voyaging was introduced to me by being in the canoe paddling community.

CL: You were part of the crew in the Mālama Honua Worldwide Voyage, a 47,000-mile open ocean Hokulea journey from 2013-2017.

AK: Hokule’a did a worldwide voyage and I got to serve. It was split up into "legs "of the journey. I trained for about 10 years for the most important one kicking off the worldwide voyage, and was part of the navigation team that sailed from Hawaii to Tahiti in 2014. Returning home I thought how could I bring what I had learned through my amazing experience at sea and share something with my community. I started a nonprofit that owns the canoes we used in these pictures. The location of the shoot is a traditional site that is actually a spring we are restoring that brings fresh water into the bay. Yvon Chouinard, the founder of Patagonia said, if you can teach someone how to enjoy a place, then you can help them learn to protect it. They have a connection to it. I’m trying to reconnect friends and our community with enjoying these natural spaces.

CL: Is there a wellness routine you practice?

AK: In that restorative time, I make sure I'm stretching and recovering and eating right.

I try to get in the water every day. Even if that is to go and jump in to clear my head. I try to get in some movement and breathwork every day. Cold plunges and sauna. I’ve learned how good that is for circulation.

CL: Do you have a routine that takes care of your skin?

AK: One caveat to being outside and in the ocean so much is having to tolerate the harshness of the sun. Especially now that I’m getting a little bit older. You have to pay to play. You can’t do anything about the sun other than trying to find good skincare. I’ve been using the Costa Brazil firming oils in the evenings, before bed, to help my skin recover from that exposure.

CL: Tell us about your friendship with Tamiko. You look so connected in these pictures.

AK: We met through surfing and just being in the beach community, having a lot of mutual friends and mutual interests. That is part of being a waterman or waterwoman. It’s this whole community of people knowing one another because they’re seeing each other at the beach, in the parking lot, at beach clean-ups. Everyone knows who’s out there in the water on any given day. She also shares an art space with a friend of mine I grew up with who’s a soap maker. My dad builds all her molds. Hawaii is such a small knit community. There are just a lot of points of connection.


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