LAHAINA>>Some 4,000 people attended a Paddle Out this morning in the waters off Hanaka‘o‘o Beach Park, including Maui’s three Lahaina canoe clubs and the Hokule‘a, the double-hulled voyaging canoe known for bringing people together and persevering Hawaii’s treasured values.

Today that treasured value was aloha and it was all going to the people of Lahaina, where a year ago today at least 102 people lost their lives in the nation’s deadliest fire in more than a century. The firestorm also burned nearly 3,000 acres and destroyed or left uninhabitable some 3,900 structures, most of them homes and many that housed multiple families.

It’s been a tough year, but the load seemed less heavy as the community picked up their boards and their oars and left the shoreline together. The Mo‘okiha O Pi‘ilani, a Maui voyaging canoe, the Manaiakalani, and Trilogy IV also were among the boats on the water.

Theresa Marzan, president of the Napili Canoe Club said that at least 100 members of the club, which harks back to 1976, joined the Paddle Out. She expected similar numbers from the Kahana Canoe Club and the Lahaina Canoe Club.

“We had a private Paddle Out for all the canoe clubs in Lahaina about a month after the fire. There’s way more people today — more media, more community members, more officials. It’s overwhelming. But it’s what I call an ‘eagle-skin’ moment. I say ‘eagle-skin’ because eagle’s soar,” Marzan said. “I feel the mana not just from our community but from the whole island and beyond.”

Marzan said the Paddle Out was symbolic of the community’s need to work together.

“It takes six people to paddle a canoe,” she said. “If you did it by yourself it would take a lot longer.”

On the shore, the crowd ranged from kupuna to new babies. Families and friends gathered to watch the Paddle Out, talk story, eat, and listen to live music. Heads were bobbing to “Starting All Over Again.” After the fires last year, American Idol Winner and Hawaiian native Iam Tongi released a version of the song and dedicated it to Maui.

“Starting all over again is going to be tough. For us, but we’re gonna make it. Starting all over again is going to be rough on us, but we gotta face it.”

EARLIER COVERAGE

LAHAINA>>It was still dark today when Leimana Purdy began chanting an oli called Ke Lei Maila at the site of the crosses that were placed to honor every person who died in last year’s Aug. 8 Maui wildfires.

There was only the sound of her voice and an occasional sniffle for much of the hour or more that volunteers and staff from Malu i Ka ‘Ulu, a group that promotes mental health and self-healing for Maui residents, took to drape a 600-foot ti-leaf lei that they had made across all of the crosses.

They began at 5 a.m. by placing posts and lei at each of the 102 crosses for the confirmed dead, and at some additional markers, and then the group used the long lei to connect them all. By 6:30 a.m., their work was done.

“The chant was about giving a gift to somebody or receiving one,” Purdy said. “When I was down in the chant, I was feeling the emotion. I opened to the emotional and spiritual side. I felt (the victims) it really got me working. I didn’t have teary eyes, but I felt it in my leo or my voice. I cried as soon as I was finished.”

Though Purdy and many others shed tears at the crosses this morning, many found peace as the rising sun backlit the grey clouds. By the end of the lei draping, warm orange and pink tones bathed the skies above the Lahaina Wildfire Impact Zone.

Erika Huch, a Napili resident who helped make the lei for her hometown of Lahaina, said, “I had tears when I entered as they were chanting for the first couple of steps. Then something shifted in me. The first lei, the first chant. It really got in my heart. I feel so good to be here. I don’t see me as a person now. I see me as everyone.”

Huch came to the memorial even though it was her birthday. This year she has more to celebrate.

“I know some people would love to be here but they can’t. I’m here for everyone. It’s not just about me.”