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Modern Wayfinding "The principles of wayfinding are simple; the practicalities are very complex. (Photo by M. Doi: Nainoa Thompson Training Some Cook Islanders in Non-Instrument Navigation) Wayfinding involves navigating on the open ocean without sextant, compass, clock, radio reports, or satellites reports. The wayfinder depends on observations of the stars, the sun, the ocean swells, and other signs of nature for clues to direction and location of a vessel at sea. Wayfinding was used for voyaging for thousands of years before the invention of European navigational instruments. In the 20th century, it is still practiced in some areas of Micronesia, although the traditional knowledge and techniques are in danger of being lost because of modernization and Westernization of the cultures of these areas. However, a revival of the art and science of wayfinding is underway among the Pacific islands, a revival led by Nainoa Thompson, the first modern-day Polynesian to learn and use wayfinding for long-distance, open-ocean voyaging. Thompson studied wayfinding under Mau Piailug, a master navigator from the island of Satawal in Micronesia. Mau navigated the first voyage of the Hokule'a to Tahiti in 1976; Thompson was Hokule'a's wayfinder on the 1980 and 1985-87 voyages. He is currently training 18 new navigators from Hawai'i and other Pacific islands. A voyage undertaken using wayfinding has three components:
2. Trying to hold this course while keeping track of one's position in relationship to it during the voyage. 3. Finding land after reaching the vicinity of one's destination.
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