Kay Leather, Hauiti Te Puru
Wayfinding involves interpreting simple things like wave movements; cloud formations; star positions; birds flying to and from islands; migratory birds and migratory marine animals; distinct fish populations; different salinity in different seas; winds; currents and wave patterns, that enable the navigator to purposefully find destination points sometimes thousands of miles away.
For instance, celestial objects such as the sun, moon or stars have distinct rising and setting points and the wayfarer can orientate their position relative to their rising or setting positions on the horizon.
In the journey from Hawaii to Tahiti as you cross the equator, the Southern Cross is used along with Meridian pairs such as Canopus to draw a North – South line through the vessel’s deck. The navigator can then maintain their direction relative to this line.
In the right season, the flight of migratory birds can also point toward unseen land. Within 30 km of land, birds that have been fishing at sea during the day, returning to their nests in the evening, indicate the direction of land.
As you come closer to land, the bottom of the clouds can develop a brownish or greenish hue as the underside of the cloud reflects the colour of the land. Over an atoll the bottom of the cloud is lighter as light is reflected by the mirror-like lagoon below.
Waves reflected off land, create distinctive patterns that can be seen or felt onboard indicating land nearby. You can even smell the land and its vegetation.
As the depth of the water decreases, the wave pattern changes and the wave shape changes. The fish populations also change.
All of these signs, and many more, are what the navigator, the fishermen learn from a young age. It is both a way of reading the marine environment and becoming part of that environment.