Category: Tahiti

Finding the Middle of the Pacific: Mangareva

I’ve always been a map guy. Even as a little kid, my constant companion was an oversized Rand McNally road atlas that I’d haul around the house, curling up on the couch in the living room and tracing with my finger the blue lines of interstates, and curling red threads of rural two-lanes. I’d sit…


Searching the Pacific for the Mutiny on the Bounty

It had been a long and difficult voyage, to say the least. Setting sail from England in November 1787, stormy winds accompanied the ship right from the start. With the goal of reaching Tahiti by the shortest route possible—around Cape Horn, at the southern tip of South America—the timing was urgent. Summer there is brief….


Meet Nainoa Thompson, the Hawaiian Navigator Who’s Preserving the Ancient Art of Ocean Wayfinding

Nainoa Thompson did not set out to rewrite history. He just wanted to go for an adventure. But he accomplished both. Decades later, he’s now the most famous person in Hawaii and an icon to seafaring people around the world. Along the way, he learned a few things: Intense preparation surmounts risk. The riskiest action…