June 16th, 2017: Hōkūleʻa

[glatt]

This "wayfinding" is awesome. Some people have a better sense of direction than others, and I wonder if they are using some part of their brain or senses that the rest of folks just aren't tapped into? Noticing the subtle cues around us like crisscrossing wave patterns and different birds.

Thompson was trained in the vanishing Pacific art of “wayfinding” by Mau Piailug of Micronesia—one of the last of the traditionally schooled navigators—who died in 2010. Following Piailug’s instructions, the Hōkūleʻa has been guided entirely without modern navigational aids such as nautical charts, compasses and GPS, instead relying on observation of the position of celestial bodies, the direction of waves and the movement of seabirds to set its course. To accurately maintain their bearing at night, the Hōkūleʻa navigators had to memorize the nightly courses of more than 200 stars, along with their precise rising and setting locations on the horizon.