Born 1953 in Niu Valley, Honolulu, He is the president of the Polynesian Voyaging Society and the trustee of the board of the Bishop estate. He loves ocean since his child-days. In 1974, he met the half-Hawai'ian artist Harb Kane and became a member of the Polynesian Voyaging Society. After the epic voyage of 1976, he started to re-create the non-instrumental navigation with his mentor Will Kyselka. In 1979, he became a student of the Micronesian Master Navigator Mau Piailug and with his teachers' assistances; He completed the navigation between Hawai'i and Tahiti then back.

Photo：Kanako Uchino

Photo：Hawai'i Tourism Japan

There was a navigational techniques used by the ancient Polynesians. As though they never have literature and navigational instruments such as compass or sextant or chronometer, they use their senses to navigate canoes and memorize their navigational knowledge as navigational chants. But once the colonization of the "Polynesian Triangle" finished, those techniques' value started to decrease and finally lost except in the tiny island of a Polynesian outlier, Taumako. Therefore in the late 18th century, Europeans couldn't imagine how Polynesians had colonized their islands.

Most important element in the non-instrumental navigation is the stars and the constellations. Ancient Polynesians used them as a clue for navigation. As the illustration above, they observed the angle of the stars from the horizon and presume where they are. Navigator must know so many stars to sail across the Pacific Ocean.