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Chapter 1
The Baby in the Tide Pool
On a small island, a baby sat in a tide pool. He felt the motion of the water around him. He did not know it yet, but his grandfather was teaching him to be a navigator.
With the gentle push and pull of the water, the baby was already learning to feel which way the wind blew.
And as this baby grew into a boy, his grandfather taught him to pay attention in other ways, too.
The boy felt the spray of waves crashing onto the sand nearby.
He heard birds call as they flew past.
He spotted clouds hanging in the sky.
Everything he saw, heard, and felt was part of a complex system. The boy would one day use this system to navigate, to find his way in the ocean. Only a few people in the world knew how to sail long voyages without charts or equipment.
This boy, Mau, was learning to be one of them.
Chapter 2 Mau Learns the Ocean and the Stars
Mau and his grandfather lived on the island of Satawal. It is small, and even nearby islands are miles away.
Satawal is an island in the Pacific Ocean. Around 500 people live there.
Satawal
For the people of Satawal, learning to travel by canoe has always been important. That is how they fish for food and visit their neighbors. When they sail, the navigator leads the way.
Long before modern tools, navigators like Mau’s grandfather used nature to guide them on a voyage. The ocean, stars, wind, clouds, birds, and sea life all helped point the way.
Modern tools existed when Mau was born. But his grandfather wanted him to learn to navigate without them.
When Mau was four, his grandfather began to take him sailing. Mau learned to see changes in the water. Soon, he could tell how deep the water was, just by seeing its color. And he could tell how far he was from the shore, just by feeling the water’s motion.
When the wind was strong, the water grew choppy. The waves on top could be hard to read. Mau learned how to see the water’s movement under the surface. This is called a swell.
Swells do not change in the same way as waves on the surface do. Even when the waves were choppy, Mau could tell which way the swells were moving.
He learned to read the pattern of eight different swells to keep his canoe on course.
wind waves
Other lessons were about the stars.
Most stars rise and set in the same place every night. One star does not rise and set at all—this is the North Star. It stays in the same place in the northern sky. On clear nights, a navigator can use this star to know which way is north.
But on some nights, clouds cover this star. For those nights, the navigator must learn all the stars.
A star compass helps a navigator map the sky. This one uses the North Star for north. It uses a group of stars called the Southern Cross for south. Many stars on the compass appear to rise in the east and set in the west.
Southern Cross
Mau’s grandfather taught him how to read the stars like a map.
Mau learned the names of more than 150 stars in the sky. He learned which stars were neighbors and which stars were far apart.
He also learned about partner stars. These are stars that rise and set at the same points but at different times.
To help Mau remember, his grandfather made a circle of coral stones on a woven mat. Each piece of coral stood for the rising and setting point of a star.
His grandfather placed a toy canoe made of a leaf in the middle of the circle. Mau would imagine that he was in the toy canoe. He could name which star went with each stone in the circle.
Then later, when Mau was in a real canoe on the ocean, he would imagine a big circle around him. And he would think of where each star rose or set on the circle.
Some of his grandfather’s lessons were about sea life.
Mau learned which birds stayed out over the ocean for many days and which ones came back to land at night. At the end of the day, he followed the birds that flew back.
White terns and Noddy terns come back to land at night.
Albatross can glide for weeks over the open ocean.
As they sailed, his grandfather also pointed out animals that could only be found in some parts of the ocean. They were clues that told the navigator where he was.
Some dolphin pods stay in the same places in the ocean.
Other lessons were about the kind of boat they used.
Mau could now build his own fishing canoe.
Fishing Canoe stern
outrigger
bow lee platform
26 feet long
Mau sailed to islands close by. He showed how well he had learned. Every day he got better at using the motion of the water, the feel of the wind, and the stars overhead.
He was following his grandfather’s path to be a navigator.
Sadly, his grandfather did not live to see it. But Mau’s father kept going with the training. And Mau kept learning.
Chapter 3
Mau Becomes a Pwo
Sometimes navigators who do not use equipment are called “way finders.” Just as the words say, they are people who find their way.
As he grew up, Mau kept finding his way in the world.
In his late teens, Mau had a new mentor. This man felt that Mau was ready for his final lessons. After all, Mau had been learning since he was very young. He had earned the right to become a pwo, an expert navigator.
To become a pwo, Mau had a few more steps to take. First, there was a big party for him, with eating, drinking, and singing.
After that, Mau spent a month alone in a cabin. His only visitors were his teachers. They taught him all the secrets of navigation that only a true pwo was allowed to learn.
After that long month, Mau made his first trip as a pwo. Even though he had been practicing for this all his life, he was not sure he was ready. He was so nervous, that he could not eat.
Australia
Satawal
Papua New Guinea
Solomon Islands
On the big day, he set sail for a tiny island more than 40 miles away.
around 46 miles
West Fayu
Satawal
No one lived on this tiny island except turtles and other wildlife. But for many years, pwo had sailed there to test their skills. Would Mau pass this test?
You bet he would. Mau found his way.
And two days after he came back, Mau wanted to sail again. His fear was gone.
Mau spent many years as a pwo on Satawal. He sailed to nearby islands and met with other navigators. But one by one, those navigators became too old to sail.
Young sailors wanted to use equipment to help them on voyages. Before long, Mau was one of the last way finders in the world.
Still, he sailed. He traveled and he fished.
Mau was not looking for a new challenge.
But as it turned out, a challenge was looking for him.
That challenge came from an idea about the people of Hawai’i.
Thousands of years ago, people in Tahiti traveled by canoe all the way to Hawai’i. They were the very first to live on the islands.
But some believed that those long-ago people got to Hawai’i by accident, drifting in currents and pushed by storms. They thought that there was no way anyone could have navigated that distance without equipment.
In 1976, a group of people from Hawai’i asked Mau to help them. They wanted to prove that this idea was wrong. Mau could navigate between Hawai’i and Tahiti without equipment. He could show that it was possible.
Hawai’i
more than 2,400 miles
Tahiti
Chapter 4 Mau Takes the Challenge
The trip was a very big challenge. It would be longer than any voyage Mau had ever navigated before.
And Mau would have to sail across the equator. Once he crossed the equator, the sky map would not be the same. He would not be able to see the North Star. There would be new stars he did not know.
It took Mau a long time to learn the sky map of the southern sky. But he did it. He learned the names of the new stars and where they rose and set.
And that meant he knew how to find the way to Tahiti.
The voyage would be more than 2,400 miles. It went across wide open ocean, not just around islands.
The people of Hawai’i built a canoe for the trip. It was much larger than those of Mau’s home. It was like the large canoes from long ago. They named it Hokule’a, which means “star of joy.”
If they could show how the long-ago sailors navigated to Hawai’i, it would bring them joy. It would help prove what their ancestors knew.
fishing canoe
26 feet long
Hokule’a
2 masts
8 crossbeams rails
stern
62 feet long bow
2 hulls
The voyaging canoe was large enough to fit a whole crew. Fourteen other people sailed with Mau. They had all spent a lot of time on the ocean, but like Mau, none had made a voyage like this one.
Since the sailors long ago had brought animals and plants with them on their trip, this journey would too. The crew included a dog named Hoku and a pig named Maxwell.
There were many rules. They could not use any tools to help them navigate.
No maps. No radios. The crew could not even wear watches.
A modern sailboat followed them the whole way. It confirmed that the voyagers did not use any scientific equipment. It was also there in case things went wrong.
The voyage lasted more than 30 days. For much of the time, no land was in sight. Some days they faced strong winds that they had to fight. Some days there were no winds at all, and that was even worse.
The crew grew restless. One time, a few of them fought. Some had a hard time with such a long journey.
Even Hoku and Maxwell got seasick.
Through it all, Mau stayed focused. He slept very little. He spent most of the time at the stern of the boat, watching the sky, the sails, and the ocean.
Finally, they made it to Tahiti!
As they sailed closer, they could not believe their eyes. The governor had declared the day a holiday. More than 17,000 people showed up to sing, dance, and cheer for them.
Boats waited for them in the port.
People on shore climbed trees to see better.
Mau and the crew of the Hokule’a had done it! They proved it was possible to navigate the long distance without equipment!
And in the middle of the celebrations, where was Mau?
Nowhere to be found.
He had gone back to Satawal. His teachers had said that a canoe crew should not fight. No matter how hard a voyage was, they should work together to reach their goal.
Because of the fight on the Hokule’a, Mau did not feel like celebrating. Instead, Mau left behind instructions for the return voyage and a short note. The note said, “Don’t come look for me.”
Chapter 5 Mau Teaches the Ocean and the Stars
Two years later, Mau heard some sad news.
Some young navigators had taken the Hokule’a out to sea again. They had tried to navigate without equipment, like Mau. There were no pwos who would help them. But still, they sailed.
They made a mistake, and one man was lost at sea.
Mau saw that if he did not help, more men might be lost.
He saw that if he did not teach navigation, the knowledge of the pwo would also be lost.
Around that time, a man named Nainoa asked Mau to teach him. Mau agreed.
Nainoa wanted to learn the same way Mau had learned from his grandfather. But Mau said that it could not be done. He began learning when he was just a baby. Before he ever stepped into a boat, he learned the movement of the ocean from floating in the tide pool.
Nainoa was already 21! He would have to begin his lessons from the inside of a boat.
Some things stayed the same, though. As his grandfather had done, Mau made a circle on the ground.
Nainoa learned the names of the stars.
Four years after his first long voyage, Mau made the trip again. This time, he was not the navigator. He was the teacher.
This crew did not fight. They listened to Mau and learned the skills of being a way finder. They sat at the stern and watched the ocean, the sails, and the sky.
After they landed on Tahiti, Mau gave Nainoa some advice. He said, “Everything is there in the ocean for you, but it will take twenty years to see.”
Nainoa understood. He had learned a lot. But he had so much more to learn.
Years passed. Mau became an old man. It had been a long time since Mau had made the voyage to Tahiti. But he knew that he could not let people forget how to navigate by the swells and the stars. He took students. His students took their own students.
Mau made sure the way finder tradition would last long after he was gone.
More
In February 1999, Mau and his crew set sail again from Hawai’i. This time, they were heading back to Satawal. On the way, they stopped at an island unlike any other. It had tall walls of black stone, yet no people lived there. The buildings appeared to float on the water. What was this mysterious place? It was Nan Madol, an ancient and abandoned city.
Ancient Pohnpeians built Nan Madol about 800 years ago. The city has 130 buildings scattered across 100 small islands. People made the islands and buildings from huge, dark stones. Some of the stones weigh 100,000 pounds—about the weight of five school buses! How did workers place these heavy stones?
No one knows. Researchers think the workers may have used rafts to float the stones from one side of the island to the other.
But no one is sure how they stacked the stones to form tall walls and buildings.
Nan Madol is full of ancient mysteries. What can we learn from studying the past?
The Navy had never recorded a sound like this. They asked Bill Watkins to identify it. But in the deep, dark sea, one sound can be hard to track.
Could Bill and his team find out what made the mysterious sound?
