Sarimanok is the thrilling story of an attempt to cross the Indian Ocean in a 20-metre-long dugout canoe to demonstrate how the Austronesian-speaking people of Madagascar may have colonised their island some 1,500 years before Christ. Characters on the way include cuthroat rebels and pirates, sea gypsies, mystical way-finders, primitive ship builders, people who hunt whales with homemade spears and boats with palm woven sails. It is a story of bold determination, tragedy and triumph; all the elements the sea delivers to those who who enter its realm. But mostly it is a story of a remarkable vessel and the equally remarkable people who sailed it; like the artist Chico Hansen who began another journey before Sarimanok's had ended. It is to Chico the book is dedicated.
Sarimanok is the thrilling story of an attempt to cross the Indian Ocean in a 20-metre-long dugout canoe to demonstrate how the Austronesian-speaking people of Madagascar may have colonised their island some 1,500 years before Christ. Characters on the way include cuthroat rebels and pirates, sea gypsies, mystical way-finders, primitive ship builders, people who hunt whales with homemade spears and boats with palm woven sails. It is a story of bold determination, tragedy and triumph; all the elements the sea delivers to those who who enter its realm. But mostly it is a story of a remarkable vessel and the equally remarkable people who sailed it; like the artist Chico Hansen who began another journey before Sarimanok's had ended. It is to Chico the book is dedicated.