(Akiit.com) Astoria, OR – The port of Astoria on the Columbia River is the home of Black History in the making as Niccolea Miouo Nance prepares to set sail with The Emuna Endeavor. The Oregon-born, Arizona-raised poet and artist has put her creative work on hold to learn seamanship and navigation at Clatsop Community College in preparation for the June 2016 departure date.
Sometimes we as individuals going about our daily lives fall accidentally into something much larger than ourselves. This is one of those stories. In July of 2012 Niccolea’s best friend Dovid who was planning on sailing around the world knew she wanted to travel so he invited her to join him. Since then she has been researching others who have done the journey and discovered that there are no Black American women on record who have sailed around the world.
Nance was born in Grant’s Pass, Oregon which is a land locked small
town in the southern part of the state just north of the California
border. She grew up in Tucson, Arizona and was a desert dweller pretty much all of her life. As such she didn’t have a rich nautical
background so she enrolled in maritime studies at the community
college.
Niccolea (pronounced “nick-cole-yah”) says “My whole life has been a lesson in diversity and tolerance (or lack thereof). I am a
Black/white biracial so since birth I have been an example of the
unification of different people from different backgrounds. Being
raised by my Caucasian stepfather and white mother gave me a
perspective on race relations that is totally different from my
friends who were raised in totally Black families/neighborhoods/etc.
I have seen racism first hand, but I have also seen great tolerance and love firsthand. I choose to focus on the good in life and people. I
want to continue to be someone who adds to the positivity in this
world.”
Even with the lessons she learned in her life, she says she is filled
with cultural stereotypes of pretty much every place in the world and would like to shed that. “I believe that travel will help me to be a
better person overall by experiencing things outside my norm. This
trip will be a means to becoming a more culturally aware and more
life-educated person.” With modern technology it also gives her a
chance to show others what she is learning so we can all learn
together via her blog and the trip site and YouTube channel.
“This is more than just a trip for me… It is the beginning step to a
goal of creating a bridge between like-minded people with this project as a catalyst. It’s more than a vacation, this is more than just a grand adventure and a test of my physical and mental strength and stamina… it is a chance to learn about the world and the people in it and hopefully create a chain of positivity on a global scale.” Per
the website, the Emuna Endeavor is the journey of two friends who’s
cause is to take you along vicariously on a world wide sailing trip
making stops to create community and hopefully unity along the way.
Then Nance found out that she will inadvertently be a part of history.
So far only one Black woman of any nationality has sailed around the
world. There was a single sentence in a Wikipedia article about
circumnavigation records (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_circumnavigations) that mentioned a woman named Maria Victor; 2007-2013; first woman of African descent (Barbados) to perform a circumnavigation (with stops, past Cape of good Hope, through Panama Canal). There is one other Black woman named Katia who plans to sail around the world who is from Cape Verde and left from Brazil recently (within the past year). As of this writing, she is approximately half the way around. Katia is sailing with her boyfriend Josh (who is from the Netherlands) on SV Hope (http://www.joshandhope.org/). Even with these two ladies,
Niccolea will still be the first American of African descent to take
on the task.
For more information about the trip see the website:
http://emunaendeavor.org/
Contact: info@emunaendeavor.org
If you would like to be a part of Black History in the making, you can
do any or all of the following options:
– a one-time donation via PayPal to emunaendeavor@gmail.com
– set up an ongoing monthly amount via Patreon:
https://www.patreon.com/emunaendeavor
– donation of safety or other gear sent to:
Emuna Endeavor
c/o Niccolea Miouo Nance
750 Commercial St unit 562
Astoria, OR 97103