Polynesian navigation
Three thousand kilometres of open ocean, without instruments
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The star compass divides the horizon by where particular stars rise and set. To that is added the reading of swell patterns — several wave trains from different directions, whose refraction around an island is felt in the hull long before the island is visible — plus cloud formations over lagoons and the flight of birds at dawn and dusk. The tradition was nearly extinguished under colonisation but survived on Satawal, where in 1976 Mau Piailug navigated Hōkūleʻa from Hawaii to Tahiti without instruments, ending a long academic dispute over whether the voyages had been deliberate or accidental.
For children
Polynesians found islands scattered across an ocean larger than all of Russia — without compass, chart or clock. They navigated by the rising points of stars, by swells refracting off land far beyond the horizon, and by birds flying home at dusk. It is the greatest feat of exploration in human history.
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Part of Terra Saga — the story of Earth on a timeline. terrasaga.org