Awesome video. I live in St. Thomas, just 30 miles north of St. Croix where he landed. There is another more recent epic journey that went from the island of Dominica to Tortola in the BVI just north of me. I've seen the boat and met one of the men from the journey. He is one of the last remaining full-blooded Carib Indians. The boat is hand-hewn from a local Gommier tree. They hollow out the hull and add to that gunwales made of flitches sawn from the same tree to form a very high freeboard. One of my Dominican friends gave me a model of one made from the same tree. It's very hard wood but fairly light.

The vessel is called the Gli Gli. It still rests in Trellis Bay in Tortola and last I viewed it the boat was still in perfect shape. Here is a link to a brief article with some great pics of the Gli Gli.
http://www.gliglicaribcanoe.com/press/GliGli_WB2011.pdf