A group of indigenous Taiwanese set off Monday on a historic ocean voyage, paddling a handcrafted wooden canoe across the Bashi Channel toward the Philippines in an effort to breathe new life into a maritime route that has gone unused for hundreds of years.
The travelers are members of the Tao people, who call Orchid Island home — a Pacific island located roughly 50 nautical miles off Taiwan’s southeastern county of Taitung. The Tao share deep cultural and ancestral ties with the indigenous inhabitants of the Batanes Islands, which lie to the north of Luzon, the Philippines’ main island.
The canoe making the journey, called Ovayan — meaning “Golden Friendship” — was built by craftspeople from six different communities on Orchid Island as part of a government-supported initiative. The crossing is expected to take approximately 24 hours, with 60 paddlers rotating in shifts while support vessels travel alongside for safety.
Maraos, who serves as chairperson of Taiwan’s Indigenous Peoples Cultural Foundation and is himself a Tao from Orchid Island, described the deeper purpose behind the expedition. “So with this project, we are re-establishing the sea route between Orchid Island and Batanes, allowing our cultures and languages to continue being passed on,” said Maraos, who goes by one name.
One of the rowers, Hsieh Hsiu-hsiung, 61, a diving instructor, acknowledged both the challenges and the comfort of having modern vessels nearby. “Nowadays we have modern vessels accompanying us and sailing together with us, so we are not afraid,” Hsieh said. “In the past, we don’t know what methods our ancestors used; perhaps looking at the stars and the moon, to navigate while sailing.”
The Tao are among Taiwan’s smaller indigenous communities, numbering only around 5,000 people. Indigenous groups as a whole make up less than 3% of Taiwan’s total population of 23 million.
While Orchid Island draws visitors as a tourist destination, its remote location and frequent bouts of rough weather can leave it cut off from the Taiwanese mainland for stretches of time.
The Bashi Channel, which the canoe must cross, is a strategically significant waterway linking the South China Sea to the Pacific Ocean — an area regularly patrolled by Chinese warships. Maraos expressed hope that the voyage would be met with respect rather than interference. “We hope that this voyage can be respected by all countries,” he said. “Most importantly, we do not want to be harassed by warships from other countries or vessels from other countries while we are at sea.”
