CREW PROFILE
Abraham “Snake” Ah Hee
2000 Voyage – Hawaii to Tahiti
by Sam Low

 “My father taught me to get lobster without a spear,” Snake Ah Hee explains, “you have to be gentle, have a good hand, or you spoil the hole. If you do it right you can come back in a few days and there will be another lobster there.”

Snake was born on March 18, 1946 in Lahaina, Maui. He lived for a time with his great grandfather in a house on the ocean outside town. “It was a fishing family. “We had nets and canoes and ever since I was a small kid my dad took me fishing. I learned the different areas to fish, how to find the fish, how the current moves, how to steer a canoe using Japanese oars.” Snake’s father, Abraham Ah Hee, Sr., was called “Froggy” because he swam so powerfully and could stay underwater so long. Like most Hawaiians, Snake began to surf as a youngster, gradually becoming comfortable in big waves. He surfed for a time with the Wind and Sea Surf Club, a California group, and in contests he often went home with a cup marked “first place.” Later he was on the Gregg Knoll surf team and paddled for the Lahaina Canoe Club where he was also a coach. “I still love to surf,” Snake says, ” and I hope to do it into my eighties. The ocean has taken hold of me spiritually and mentally. I think it’s because it’s tied in with my family, with being raised on the ocean.”

Snake graduated from Lahainaluna High School in 1964 and worked as a life guard at hotels on Maui. He joined the National Guard and was called up in 1968 to go on active duty – one tour in Vietnam. He served in the Southern war zone, not too far from Saigon, and he rose to be a squad leader in charge of patrols.

“It made my mind stronger,” he says, “more adult. It taught me the value of life. It’s crazy to fight. I hope my children will never go to war. I want to see peace – all the time – all over the world.”

Snake has five children, three girls and two boys: Malia Mahealani, Nainoa Chad, Makalea Rose, Mau Nukuhiva, and David. It’s not an accident that the names Nainoa, Chad and Mau appear in this family. “Hokule`a brought all her crew together, “Snake says, “we’re like a family of brothers and sisters. I can go anywhere in Hawaii and stay with my `ohana. On the Big Island, for example, I stay with Shorty or Tava or Chad; on Moloka`i maybe with Mel Paoa or Penny Rawlins. I might not see them for a year but when I do it seems like just a short time.”

In 1975, Snake first heard about Hokule`a and that she would sail to Tahiti, but he had never laid eyes on her. “Then one day I was in my truck on the way to the canoe beach and I saw this boat coming from Lana`i. ‘What’s that?’ I thought. I stopped. I had never seen anything like it before.”

Later, George Paoa and Sam Ka`ai came to the beach where Snake was life guarding and asked him to be a member of the crew. He began training right away and was chosen for the return trip from Tahiti to Hawai`i. That’s where he first met Nainoa.

“That trip gave me a real good feeling inside,” Snake remembers, “It was a good thing for my generation. The canoe makes us strong in mind and spirit – close to our culture. If not for the canoe I won’t say that our culture would be lost, but it would be weaker. It helped bring back the language, and helped bring back the community, not only in Hawai`i but throughout all the Pacific – wherever she has stopped.”

“On this trip,” he continues, “I’m here to teach the younger generation who are sailing with us – how to take care of themselves and each other – how to be humble. For me that’s the one key part. If you’re humble everything will be fine. Everyone will think the same, work the same, be closer together. Only if you are humble can you learn.”