Voyaging Across the Ocean Without a Map

Polynesian wayfinding https://hokulea.com/polynesian-wayfinding/

“We … find our way on canoes as we travel across the ocean where there are no street signs.”

Even in the middle of the Pacific Ocean with no land in sight – and no GPS – Lehua Kamalu knows where she’s going.

double hulled canoe on the ocean
Hōkūle’a was designed to replicate traditional Polynesian voyaging canoes. Photo courtesy of the Polynesian Voyaging Society.

I learned about Lehua through an interview on the Overheard at National Geographic podcast. As part of the Polynesian Voyaging Society (PVS), she has learned to find her way across the waves by employing ancestral knowledge and constant, keen observation of her surroundings.

Lehua Kamalu on a boat
Captain navigator Lehua Kamalu before departing on a voyage from Hawaii to California in August 2018. Photo by Hye Jung Kim / Polynesian Voyaging Society.

 

“Wayfinding for us really is the idea that with the naked eye, with all of your senses, [you] immerse yourself into the signs of the natural world around you.”

The Polynesian Voyaging Society was founded in the 1970s, part of a Hawaiian cultural renaissance of pre-colonial arts, language, knowledge, and skills. They re-learned how to build the large, ocean-going canoes that had originally brought Polynesians to the Hawaiian islands centuries ago, as well as the navigational methods that guided them.

“Waves create regular, readable patterns in the ocean that are long range and very consistent, particularly in the tropics, particularly here in Polynesia, and are very reliable to find your way.”

The first voyaging canoe PVS built was the 62-foot long Hōkūleʻa, which was launched in 1975 and has since traveled over 140,000 nautical miles! The next canoe, Hikianalia, was built in 2012.

Close-up view of a voyaging canoe on the water with its name, Hokule'a, printed on the side.
Photo courtesy of the Polynesian Voyaging Society.

In 2018, after years of honing her navigational skills, Lehua Kamalu became the first woman to captain one of these canoes on an extended voyage.

It was fascinating to hear her describe what it’s like to sail across the Pacific Ocean without present-day navigational equipment.

“The navigator’s job is to spend as little time sleeping as possible. And as much time watching for consistency, watching for patterns in the sky and in the ocean, and also for changes and comparing what’s going on between the two.”

Currently, she’s one of the 400 crew members of two Polynesian voyaging canoes (Hōkūle‘a and Hikianalia) that are circumnavigating the Pacific on the 43,000-nautical-mile “Voyage for the Earth,” Moananuiākea.

You can track their progress on the Polynesian Voyaging Society site and see maps and updates of where they are.

2 canoes
The two Polynesian voyaging canoes built by the Polynesian Voyaging Society. Photo courtesy of the PVS.

PodRec!

A podcast episode recommendation for you…

Overheard at National Geographic
Episode 19 from May 9, 2023
“She Sails the Seas Without Maps or Compasses”



All quotes are by Lehua Kamalu, from her Overheard interview with Eli Chen. All photos courtesy of the Polynesian Voyaging Society.

Wonder

“Travel and magic both have the ability to deliver this cataclysmic death blow to any sense of certainty that you have.”

-Nate Staniforth

Chiricahua National Monument

One of the best kept secrets about adulthood is that adults don’t have all the answers.

We’re just better at faking it, as if imagination and curiosity were beneath us. As if childlike wonder was only for children.

Boyce Thompson Arboretum feather

But it’s good for all of us to remember our actual place on this vast and baffling planet, to sit back to appreciate the beauty of everyday magic, to marvel at what we can’t explain.

Rain on window

I loved how the thread of wonder ran through a recent episode of the podcast You Made It Weird.

In their 2-hour-plus conversation, comedian/host Pete Holmes and his guest, magician Nate Staniforth, talked about the things that challenge your assumptions about reality – like traveling or having children or seeing a really good magic trick.

You can close yourself off, or you can open your arms to the mystery and be amazed at what unfolds.

brittle bush plant

A final thought from Nate Staniforth:

“Wonder is such a slippery, ephemeral experience. You can’t bottle it up and keep it. And if you could, it wouldn’t be wonder. So the idea is not to find it once and then say ‘I’ve got it,’ but it’s to keep looking for it.”

South Mountain sunset rays


PodRec!

A podcast episode recommendation for you – hopefully, the first of many!

You Made It Weird
August 15, 2018
guest: Nate Staniforth



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