The Last Navigator

Nonfiction account of a young American man's sojourn in the South Pacific, on the Micronesian island of Satawal in the Caroline archipelago, studying traditional navigation with Mau Piailug, the last of the palus. It was Piailug who navigated a Polynesian vessel from Hawaii to Tahiti without compass or charts, as documented by a PBS film of the voyage. Thomas learns how to navigate by stars, wind, swell, birds, and memory. It is a story of seafaring, a dying culture, and self-discovery.