“They cooked Mister Cool!”
For those of us who may be unaware, the Briton Captain
James Cook was an eighteenth century explorer, navigator, and
cartographer whose voyages shaped our
understanding of the world.
His accomplishments were so numerous, so important, five hundred
books on his legacy aren’t even close to enough.
Want a little history lesson?
Cook was a key figure in advancing celestial navigation and
astronomy – if you’ve ever read the wonderful book Longitude
you’ll know how revolutionary his observations were.
Cook worked closely with the naturalists Joseph Banks and Daniel
Solander (Cape Solander was subsequently dubbed Ours by surfers)
who cataloged thousands of plant and animal species previously
unknown to European science, enriching botanical and zoological
knowledge.
He pioneered measures to combat scurvy, a deadly disease caused
by vitamin C deficiency that plagued long sea voyages by enforcing
a diet including fresh fruits, vegetables and sauerkraut,
along with strict hygiene standards. It was this success in keeping
his crew healthy—losing remarkably few men to scurvy—that set a new
standard for naval expeditions.
More importantly, and before he was killed by locals in Hawaii
which muddied his popular-with-the-natives rep, Cook approached
indigenous peoples with a degree of respect wildly uncommon for his
time. He aimed to establish peaceful relations, often trading goods
and recording detailed accounts of their cultures, languages, and
customs.
His journals provide some of the earliest European documentation
of Polynesian, Maori, Australian Aboriginal, and Native Hawaiian
societies.
Thing about Cook is he’s since been downgraded by the
anti-colonial crowd. Even though he didn’t colonise anywhere, he
was an enabler, as they say, the detailed charts he produced on the
east coast of Australia, were later used by the British government
to justify establishing a penal colony at Botany Bay in 1788.
It’s rare to find a Cook statue in Australia that hasn’t been
smeared in paint, graffitied (“No pride in genocide!”) “, legs
sawn-off, toppled, stolen, nose chopped off etc.
Cook’s statues, see, serve as lightning rods for historical
grievances, in Australia’s case, for the theft of the great
southern land from the indigenous peoples who’d existed there for
sixty thousand years.
And, now, the three-time world champ, who is as Hawaiian as a
haloe boy can get, has been cast as a sort of pirate
James Cook in a mural for Florence Marine X on Kauai.
on Kauai.
The mural, which can be seen at the excellent Slow Yourself Down
store at 5-5070 Kuhio Hwy, Hanalei on Kauai, was posted by John
John’s surfer of the year brother Nathan on Instagram with the
line, “They cooked Mister Cool.”
This may refer to John John or the little brother Ivan.
big bro John John’s Cook.
Ivan Florence, who turns twenty-nine in May, you see, has
emerged from the shadow of his overachieving oldest brother and
Prince Harry-lookalike middle bro in the past couple of Hawaiian
seasons, proving magnetic in the water as well as the skate
park.
Question to dwellers below the line.
Is the cosplay of John John Florence as Captain Cook a thumb in
the eye to the woke or a tribute to a great navigator with a
permanent connection to the gorgeous Hawaiian isles?
