The year 11 Kings High School pupil was one of 20 from Ngai Tahu who took part in a six-day voyage around the Hauraki Gulf.
Selected by his Otakou runanga, he and was the only young person from Dunedin to take part.
"It was awesome. I loved it," he said.
The group members were taught how to navigate with compasses, but also with more traditional methods - the stars and hands.
By lining up the Southern Cross with his thumb, he learned how to calculate varying degrees along his index finger, he said.
For Taikawa, the journey was a fantastic learning opportunity, but was also about elders making way for the next generation of Maori.
"[They are] pushing us forward and making us the leaders they think we can be."
Taikawa flew to Auckland on April 25 and went straight to the 24m double-hulled waka Aotearoa One, owned by Te Wananga o Aotearoa.
After being told about safety procedures, the group set sail to the first destination.
Each day they sailed to a new place.
Taikawa spent the entire time on the boat, which was equipped with two cabins and a kitchen.
While he enjoyed seeing the beauty of the Hauraki Gulf by day, seeing Great Barrier Island and the Coromandel Peninsula, he also got to experience it by starlight when he was rostered on night sailing duty.
Group leader Eruera Tarena, of Christchurch, Ngai Tahu's tourism project manager, said the trip was special because Ngai Tahu did not have any waka and it had been hundreds of years since a group from the tribe had sailed on one.
He wanted to make such voyages run regularly and even have some smaller waka built to be based in the South Island.
"That's how our people got here, so it's an art form that's been sort of lost. We're trying to revitalise that," he said.
The journey had a strong cultural base, with much of the instruction being given in te reo and karakia and haka being taught.
"The key thing is we are trying to bring back traditional Ngai Tahu maritime traditions."
Mr Tarena was pleased with the way in which the group pushed itself throughout the journey and the skills Taikawa showed, especially in te reo.
