Wisconsin Public Television University Place  Celecstial Navigation In The South Pacific  James Campbell  5/22/13 UP893  cc >> Welcome to University Place Presents. I'm Norman Gilliland. For centuries the inhabitants of the central Pacific were able to travel from one distant island to the next, 50-100 miles away. They did this without the use of any kind of European invention, obviously. So how did they pull it off? How were the able to cover these vast differences of space, and get back home and continue a trade pattern that, as I say, lasted for so long? And would their methods of navigation be able to be recreated today? Well, my guest, James Campbell, tried it, and he has the story behind this form of celestial navigation. And welcome to University Place Presents. >> I'm happy to be here. Thank you. >> Now, as a journalist, as an author, how did you get caught up in this question of celestial navigation? >> That's a good question. In 2006, I finished trekking across New Guinea finishing up my book, The Ghost Mountain Boys, and I arrived at a place called Tufi on the east coast of the Papuan Peninsula of New Guinea, and we stayed there for about seven days. 

And the men would come in every day on their fishing boats, their mahogany breadfruit fishing boats, and some of them spoke a little bit of English. I was amazed by what they did, and they said if you're really amazed at our sailing skills and navigational skills, go to the Caroline Islands. So that kind of stuck in my head. So I came home and I started researching the Caroline Islands and their tradition of open ocean navigation, and it astounded me. They sailed hundreds, thousands of miles using star paths as their guides. So I started researching, in 2009 I went with a friend and a photographer to Saipan. The sailors from an island called Satawal in the central Carolines had sailed up to Saipan for something called the Flame Tree Festival. We met them there hoping that we might be able to get a boat and sail back to Satawal with them, but the chief said we were not allowed to. So we went home crestfallen and decided that we were going to continue to try to do it. It took three more years, actually two more years before they finally said yes, this chiefs' council, and we met them in Palau and sailed, essentially, 2,500 miles with them across the central Pacific. 

>> Using celestial navigation. >> Using celestial navigation, yeah. That's the way they do it. Magellan developed this sea route in Micronesia, that was 1521 or something like that. The central Carolines are south of that and south of the trade routes that developed after that. So they relied on celestial navigation and their knowledge of the sea for hundreds of years, and now it's a proud tradition that they continue to cling to.  >> When you say cling to, is this one of those things where technology is something that has to be kind of resisted in order to maintain this tradition and this ability? >> Well, the central Carolines are incredibly remote. They're 1800 miles long. There are 600 islands and 80 of them are inhabited, so these people are separated by vast distances of blue water. 50 miles, 100 miles, that's considered a neighbor. 

So they use their skills every day of their lives. They reject the GPS. The GPS has, I guess, penetrated every square, every corner of the world, but they continue to use celestial navigation. There's a government boat that delivers gasoline to the islands, but the government boat is unreliable. So they say, what do we have gas motors for because we can never run them. So they rely on these sailing canoes which they call kanus. >> And we'll have a look at some of those as we go through some of the images that you brought back from this adventure, I'll call it. >> It was an adventure. >> Not an excursion but an adventure. >> It wasn't a pleasure sail. 

>> Although, it must have had some pleasures when you see an image like this, a rainbow that you would be able to follow the entire arc. >> Yeah, the great drama, well lots of the time, when we were sailing happens in the sky, particularly at night when the stars are spread thick across the sky. More stars than I've ever seen in my life, which includes Arctic Alaska. >> I'm sort of curious about that too because we think of the Pacific as being such a humid area that you would think the skies would be kind of fuzzy much of the time. >> That's interesting. No. Well, there were times when the skies were black, and I'll tell you a little bit about some of the storms, and when the skies had collections of clouds, but on the clear nights it was, they sail with their heads craned toward the heavens and it's easy to understand why. The star paths they call --, and they follow the star paths as they sail. And it's really remarkable. They follow the rising and setting positions of 16 stars, but they know the paths, the flight paths of hundreds of stars. 

And that begs the question: how do they navigate during the day? That's also very interesting. >> The sun is useful, at least for a sense of direction, during the day. >> Yeah. The sun, ocean swells, ocean waves. They look for birds. It's called atoc. That's how they read the sea, and I suppose it'd be like a woodsman in the woods. It becomes kind of part of them after a while and almost instinctive or instinctual. And so the way they read the skies and the water and the air is remarkable. >> So this is one of the canoes that we're seeing. 

>> Yeah, this is the canoe we used. It's called the --. It's a 56-foot single-mast, double-hulled, Hawaiian sailing canoe. And traditionally the people of the Carolines used single-hulled sailing canoes. So these were the canoes that they used to make the great blue water jumps into the void of the eastern Pacific. And some of them were hundreds, 120-150 feet long. This one is only 56. >> Two hulls a hundred feet long? >> Two hulls. Right. Bigger, faster than Captain Cook's Endeavor. 

But this is the one we sailed. It was a gift from the Polynesian Voyaging Society to the Carolinians who taught the Hawaiians how to sail again and use celestial navigation. >> What did they use for sails? >> Well, in the past they used breadfruit sails, which you can imagine in a big wind were not very durable. But these are modern sails, modern synthetic sails. >> And the advantage, one advantage of the two hulls is you get a good deal of stability, don't you? >> Yes, a great deal. >> So stable you could sit on the bow and play the guitar or the ukelele. >> That's right. Although, we certainly were not stable all the time. But if you see the single-hulled sailing canoes, yeah, they ride at a 45-degree angle almost all the time. >> And the advantage there, I gather, would be that you have minimal hull in the water. 

>> That's right. >> While you're underway. >> Right. >> But if you want to stop, you've got, again, that stability and a fair amount of space to work with. >> Right. Yeah, in the single-hulled sailing canoes there's very little space to work with. >> And I'm also assuming that you took freshwater with you, but probably not a lot else in terms of food? >> We took coconuts, bananas, freshwater, although we caught rainwater also, and betel nut. They chew betel nut incessantly. The moment they wake up in the morning, all night long. It's a stimulant. 

They say it gives them energy and courage. >> What do you do to prevent scurvy in a situation like that? Where do you get you vitamin C? >> Well, from the bananas that we brought along, and I brought along some powdered Gatorade which everybody seemed to like. I think it was gone by the third day of the trip. But what they did when they made these great jumps into the ocean back at the time of Christ and before that, they brought pigs and chickens and obviously fruits and taro and breadfruit, but they sailed as pioneers to end up at new islands, and they realized these explorations might last months. >> And there might be an island with nothing much on it. >> And there might be an island with nothing much on it. Right. >> So you must have fished constantly. >> All the time. Morning, noon, and night. 

That was what we ate. We ate the best sashimi in the whole Pacific. Morning, noon, and night. It was delicious. I love sushi, and I never imagined that I could get sick of sushi, but after two and a half weeks aboard the -- I was tired of sushi. >> And so, we're talking about what kind of various fish would you catch? >> Mostly tuna and mahi-mahi. >> And you did this with hooks and lines or with nets? >> Hooks and lines. They had, from Saipan, the navigator's brother lived on Saipan, and he brought some pretty sophisticated fishing rods. >> How big a crew then on this 2500-mile voyage? >> We were part of the crew, the photographer and I, so we had to work. And I, unfortunately, had the graveyard. 

I was part of the graveyard crew. >> You get to see lots of stars. >> You see lots of stars and lots of storms, but a total of 12 people aboard the boat. Now, the 56-foot represented from one hull to the next. However, the area where we were aboard the boat was much, much smaller than that. >> We'll get a glimpse of that in just a minute too. And I gather this is a navigation lesson in progress here? >> Yeah, that's a navigation lesson in progress. Rarely do they use compass or mathematical instruments, but these are two navigators in training. So the navigator was teaching them how. In trying to show them how their celestial navigation compared with the mathematics of a different kind of navigation, modern navigation, and they did remarkably well. 

>> So what kind of route did you have? I envision this 2500 miles as being in a straight line, but obviously it couldn't be. >> No, it wasn't. We started from a place called Koror, Palau, and we went, our goal was we were trying to hit an island straight east called Sonsorol, but on route we get hit by an enormous storm and we were blown way, way south. So it was probably 100 or 200 miles off course, and that took about a day or two to figure out. Now, when they set off to sail, they don't have kind of a western time schedule. In this case they kind of did, imposed by us, because we had obligation to write the article and make it back. But when they set sail under voyaging skies, sometimes they'll be gone two or three months. >> Well, I gather they don't have a big seasonal shift to worry about in that part of the Pacific? >> They actually do. >> Do they? >> Yeah. The spring is usually April, May, June is a wonderful time to sail. 

They call that the period of voyaging skies. When the men go out to fish, to hunt turtles, and just go visiting neighbors. But the storms at other times of the year can be terrific and awesome. >> So those three months are kind of their best window. >> Right. Those are the best. And that's when the fishing is the best and also the turtle hunting. >> And this is a look under the canopy, I guess you would say, of this. And it doesn't look very big by the time you get all of the things under there. >> No. 

Anchors and ropes and bananas and betel nut and coconuts and all the people lying all over. That's a photo of a man named Kurt who's from an island north of Koror, Palau. He was, I called him the chief. He reminded me of the chief in Ken Kesey's One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. He's a craggy-faced guy. Enormous man. Never smiled, never uttered a word, but there was something really likeable about him. >> And did you get away from this expedition without a tattoo? [LAUGHTER] >> I did. I actually was tempted to get a tattoo. Tattoo is part of their culture and tradition. 

On the islands, everyone is tattooed. From old women and old men to young sailors, and of course the tattoos are something they're very proud of. As you can see, they're seafaring tattoos. >> So, are there categories of tattoos that have anything to do with a cast or a clan, or are they more like personalized than that? >> They've become more personalized. I think that once upon a time, as you moved up as a seafarer, you were allowed to get different kinds of tattoos. You had to earn those tattoos. But now the tattooing has become really prevalent. That's a shot of a man named -- who was very, very proud of his tattoos, and he's a navigator in training too and was a wonderful, wonderful guy. >> Now, why did you pick this particular 2500-mile trip? What was at the end of it? >> At the end of it is Satawal, and Satawal is kind of the cradle of open ocean navigation. And it is almost kind of the dead geographic center of the Caroline Islands, and that's where the great Mau, Mau Piailug, came from, who popularized open ocean navigation, taught the Hawaiians how to navigate over vast expanses of the sea. 

So we were going back with Sesario, Mau's son. Mau died in 2010. We were hoping to sail with him, but we sailed in 2011 so we sailed with his son, Sesario. And he was going home for a great Easter celebration. And he was in Palau so it was 1200 miles to Satawal, that's a straight line which we didn't sail, and then back to Palau. >> And I gather they don't just get on the cell phone and say, I'm coming to see you and I should be there by June. [LAUGHTER] >> Have a great feast for me. >> Right. [LAUGHTER] >> No. Time is unimportant. 

Completely unimportant. They may intend to show up in April, and they'll get there in June. And they'll have a celebration but nobody is much concerned about time. >> A little concerned, as you say, about weather though. >> Yeah. >> What options do you have? This storm that we're seeing here, the storm in the making... >> Right. >> What would your options be? Would you heave to and ride it out? Would you try to sail around it or try to sail through it? How do you decide? >> All of the above. We tried everything. This was the most enormous, awesome, frightening storm I've ever been in in my life. 

It started, it was a clear day and then all the sudden these dark black clouds started to encircle us, and then this moan started, the moan of the wind, and then it became a howl. And by the end of the night, the wind was, I was on board with Kurt and that wind was practically blowing me off the sailboat. And I thought, man, I have a family, I have a wife and three daughters. >> What am I doing here? >> I am out of my mind. And I really thought I was a goner. There were enormous waves, and the wind was just ferocious. And I actually had a satellite phone because I was doing reports for National Public Radio, and I tried, I was going to try to get the GPS working on the satellite phone in case I went overboard. I thought perhaps someone, they'll set off the emergency locator beacon, which was our only safety device, and perhaps someone might find me floating in the Pacific one day. But it was the most terrified I'd ever been. And I think even they were frightened, though they took it largely in stride because it's something they'd seen before. 

>> You mentioned to me at one point that it's a 30-foot tiller though. How do you steer with a 30-foot tiller through a storm like that? >> You have to be enormously strong, which Kurt was. But oftentimes what someone will do, Kurt has the front of the tiller and there will be someone sitting farther back, 10 feet back, but it's a 30-foot mahogany tiller. And when the storm got really bad, they pulled down all the sails, they call it sailing under bare poles. >> Bare poles. >> Right. And we just rode it out. And Sesario said we're going to let the storm take us wherever it wants to. There was no point in fighting it at that point. >> Did that do any damage to your vessel? >> Remarkably no. 

What they will do, if the winds are so bad, they'll flip the canoe. They'll flip the sailing canoes and they will tie themselves to the sailing canoe or grab a piece, anything that floats, and they will ride out the hurricane or the typhoon that way. And they've done it before. Sesario's brother was at sea for 45 days after a hurricane just floating until they were able to right the canoe. >> I was going to say, essentially we're talking about a catamaran. >> A catamaran, right. >> A very difficult thing to flip back up. >> Very difficult to flip back up. Yeah. >> And here's a look at some adjustments at least after the storm. 

>> This was after the storm, and they were putting the sails back up. But you're in the middle of nowhere. The closest place is Guam, and of course there's a US Coast Guard on Guam, but we were 600 miles from Guam. By the time anybody came to save us, we would have been shark bait or long gone. >> Did you have life jackets at all? You mentioned that your only safety equipment was this one finder beacon, but what else did you have? >> We did but they don't wear them. For them it's a point of pride. I wore mine. I didn't care what they said. I was determined somehow to get home. If that meant losing my manhood by wearing a life jacket, I was going to do it. 

>> So they're, all this 2500 miles, constantly making these measurements, these day end and night measurements. >> Right. They're making adjustments all the time. As I said, the signs, they follow the rising and setting of the stars and the star paths, that's called --. And then something atoc are the different signs they read. All that kind of figures into their mental calculations. And, of course, it's not an exact science. It's a kind of feel for the ocean and the wind that, I guess, is born of intimacy, of experience. >> Closeness to it. >> Closeness to it, which, I sail or I sailed on Lake Monona or raced on Lake Monona for years with my brother-in-law, but it's something that I could never come to understand. 

Something that I think most modern sailors have no notion of. These people begin sailing when they're five years old, every day of their lives. >> Now, somebody took all these pictures that we're seeing. >> Yeah. >> You mentioned a photographer, and I gather he was literally out on a limb sometimes. >> Out on a limb. My brave photographer Philipp Engelhorn, a German photographer who lives in Hong Kong. And he's a very good friend of mine. He walked across New Guinea with me, and he was the guy for this. But he climbed the mast in this. 

>> He didn't just hoist the camera up? >> No, he didn't. >> He climbed the mast. >> He climbed the mast. It was something I never would have done. But he's about 6'1", 150 pounds, so he could do it. >> We have to consider that for every degree at the foot of a mast is how many degrees at the top of the mast. >> He was swaying back and forth. How he managed to capture this picture, I don't know. But you can see how crowded the deck is. There was very little room to maneuver, eat or sleep or anything. 

>> And getting down those sails when a storm came, how fast a process was that? >> Well, they have no rollers to furl the sail onto the head. They had no winches. So everything is just done with cleats and brute strength. And that sail almost got away on them and almost whipped them out to sea. It's frightening. They're are courageous young men. This was something I did not participate in. I watched them do it. >> Because you could either lose the sail or the person handling it or maybe both. >> Or maybe both, right. 

>> About the outriggers then, the difference between a catamaran and a single-hull outrigger, would that just be for the smaller boats? >> Yeah. The single-hulled sailing canoes can be 36 feet, but usually they're considerably smaller, like this one in the picture. And they sail these 50-100 miles. They wouldn't do an open ocean crossing that we did, they wouldn't attempt that in that kind of sailing canoe. >> Do they have any kind of center board or anything like that? >> No. >> Or is it the outrigger to stabilize it? >> The outrigger to stabilize, and what they do is when they tack, there are many historians who said that people explored the central and eastern Pacific not intentionally but opportunistically. They were blown off course by winds. But many other historians and anthropologists, including a guy names John Terrell from the Field Museum, who happens to have a farm in Mount Horeb, says that they did have sophisticated seafaring traditions and they'd been sailing for tens of thousands of years through the southwest Pacific. So they had those kind of skills to navigate the open ocean, but they would never try to navigate the open ocean in a single-hulled sailing canoe. But they actually moved the mast. 

When they tack, the stern of the boat becomes the bow and the bow becomes the stern. I've never seen anything like it, but they do it remarkably well. >> It sounds like quite a project, especially if you need to turn in a hurry. >> It looks like quite a project, but they do it masterfully. >> And here's sort of a little convention, I guess, in the making in a lagoon. >> Yeah, these beautiful lagoons. Many of the islands have beautiful lagoons. And every time we'd come into an island, we'd have these welcoming committees. The whole island would come out in their outriggers and sailing canoes to greet us, and the kids would come aboard and they'd touch our skin. That was a beautiful experience. 

>> So the tradition that we see in Mutiny on the Bounty or wherever, that's the real thing. >> It is the real thing. You can imagine these civilizations, these people, a hundred people live on an island, or 200 hundred people, that's maybe three football fields long. And then the next island is 50, 60, 70 miles away, and those are their neighbors. So they're really these self-contained little civilizations with their own languages. They have dozens of different languages through those islands. So you can imagine when some people arrive in a double-hulled sailing canoe from way west, the thrill they experience. >> Do you make a point of bringing things for them? >> Yeah, we did. We brought gifts. I brought Frisbees for all the kids. 

They love Frisbees. >> That would be the perfect thing, wouldn't it? >> It was great. They love the Frisbees. And then they'd have great feasts for us. They'd kill and roast a pig or we'd eat more fish. Then they'd give us breadfruit and taro. But it was really an event, a happy time for them. >> What did they, how do they prepare something like a pig? Obviously we're seeing it's being roasted, I guess you would say. >> Yeah. They're burning the hide off this pig, and then what they do, much like they do in Hawaii, is they set them under rocks, they dig a pit, and then set them under rocks and put plant material on top, and they do a slow roast for days, and it is the most succulent, tasty stuff I've ever had. 

>> And with seafood, the same thing, or do they have other recipes that would involve seafood? >> Seafood, grilled, eaten raw. >> Really? >> These are octopus. We went on an octopus hunt with the men of Satawal. And they also eat sea turtle in spring. That's one of the reasons they set off in spring. Winters, they call it --, is a time of hunger when there's very little fish, very little breadfruit, very little taro. So in late March or April they'll set out. This sea is their highway and their grocery store. So they're subsistence hunters, and they will bring back hawksbill and green turtles and have an incredible feast. >> When you say hunting, or hunting octopus for example, they do this what, with a spear? >> Octopus they just catch with their hands. 

>> Catch with their hands? >> Yeah, catch with their hands. But the turtles they hunt with spear guns. Traditional spear guns. And that's quite an experience. >> Some of this sounds like it involves underwater. >> Oh, yeah. They can dive like you-- they'll dive 30-40 feet down on a breath and sit there with their spear guns waiting to take a shot. They'll be down for two or three minutes, and I will have been down, come up, been down, come up. >> Is the water that clear? >> Oh, the water is-- nothing, nothing to contaminate the water. Although, that whole area is changing. 

Global warming is changing what's happening in the islands. A lot of the sea is taking over a lot of those highlands. There's also big -- and longliners who are fishing there illegally and depleting the fisheries of that area. So things are getting more difficult. >> The weather there can be pretty severe, I would think. The sun, the salt, the wind. >> Yeah. >> So, are these canoes such that they can just keep them out, or do they actually have to have a garage for them? >> Yeah, they have a garage. They have a canoe house called an oot, and after they go out fishing, the men go out every morning at 5:00 in the morning, whenever they want, and they'll usually come back after a day or two of fishing, and then they push their canoe into the oot and store them. The canoes are made of breadfruit, native material. 

And also a mahogany keel. And they do have to be rebuilt after a number of years because, of course, they do take a beating from the sun, the salt, everything else. >> Do they not use any kind of varnish or paint for these canoes? >> Well, they do have, the traditional paint for the canoes is either red and black or yellow and green. So they do paint them to preserve them, but nevertheless, they don't last that long. So they're always building new canoes. >> Is that a cause for celebration? It sounds like it would be such a big project that it would be. >> It's a project that involves, in some cases, the whole island. So, the completion of a canoe is a time for celebration, but they don't have kind of a western notion of a factory system. They just work on the canoe for an hour and then they'll go lie around and then they'll come back for two more hours. But there's no, I don't want to kind of paint them in kind of a western perspective from the 18th century. 

But they do have a different notion of time. >> And deadlines >> And deadlines, yeah. >> This, I think, is a canoe being built. >> That's on the island of Satawal, a man named Lorenzo, who was the master canoe builder. He's building that canoe without the aid of any metal tools, nails, anything. He's putting that canoe together. >> How do they, do they put it together with pegs then? >> Pegs, yeah, and what they call bush rope, which I don't even know what it was. Woven bush rope. So that's one thing they do. And they'll sit in the men's hut, the canoe house, at night and they'll weave rope all night long. 

So they're busy while they're sitting there, but this is what the bush rope is essential to canoe building. >> Do they have, it sounds as if a holiday would not even be necessary in this kind of calendar. [LAUGHTER] >> Yeah. Well, the holidays are special days of celebration. This was a celebration in our honor which lasted for two or three days. They would dance and sing all night long, and everybody would. The women, the men, the young boys and girls. It was really a special experience. >> What about alcohol? >> Ah, yeah. They drink. 

Every night the men sit, first in the canoe house and then they out to the beach to watch the sunset, and they drink something called tuba or faluba, which is fermented coconut branch syrup. And it's very sweet, but they drink and they say it gives them courage and then at 1:00 AM, one man will say to another, let's go off, we're going off on an exploration, and they'll go off and they'll return with no provisions. They'll return two weeks later or a month later or three days later. >> They leave in the middle of the night? >> Leave in the middle of the night. It's remarkable. And they say that the tuba gives them the courage to sail. >> And so they have alcohol on the one hand, but they have stimulants on the other hand. So it sounds as if they're kind of constantly going from one to the other. >> Well, the women are not allowed to drink the tuba or faluba. It's a matrilineal society, but men have some privileges such as alcohol. 

But the tuba and sailing are intertwined. They really, really do believe firmly that it gives them the courage to set off to unknown areas. >> How do they teach the celestial navigation other than by learning by doing? Do they have teaching aids? >> Yeah, they do. What they'll do is they'll lay a mat down, it's called unfolding the mat, and then they'll take coral and they'll have 32 pieces of coral which represents the rising and setting position of their major navigational stars. And then they'll show how those paths work, and every star, of course, has a name. But there are hundreds of other stars they use when they navigate. And then there are also fighting stars and weather stars. >> Fighting stars. >> Fighting stars, they have fighting stars, stars that compete to influence the weather. And I couldn't begin to understand just how complicated their form of navigation was and is. 

And I had only a very basic understanding. It's a very sophisticated form of dead reckoning. That's as close as I got to explaining it. >> This is one of the islands that you would have gone to? >> Yeah, this is one of the beautiful islands called Lamotrek. And I had this notion of this wonderful life on an isolated island in the Pacific, but it's a difficult life. First of all, you're pounded by storms at certain times of the year. The heat is just at times unbearable. On many of these islands there are sand flies which just torture you, and you're confined to that island. Unless you're an accomplished sailor, you're confined to that island. So you can imagine walking around the perimeter of an island for 10 or 15 minutes, and that's the land on which you live. 

>> How many of these islands, in the Carolines, say, have freshwater? >> That's a growing problem. As the Earth warms and the seas warm and rise, the saltwater is invading these islands and their freshwater supply. So they're catching much more water. Traditionally they use thatched roofs, but now they're using more metal roofs than ever before in order to catch the water. But the ocean is contaminating their freshwater supplies and, also, their gardens on which they depend. So, in many cases, I saw on these islands, which are 25 feet above sea level, maybe 50 feet above sea level, what they do is they're now bringing in cement and they're building these platforms and then they're putting soil on top of the cement platforms and growing their gardens that way. But they do fear that their culture, that their way of life will be over in a matter of decades. And some of them are already being relocated. The people of the Marshall Islands, for instance, have been relocated, in some cases to New Guinea. >> We have a feast here, another feast in the making it looks like. 

>> Part of the ongoing feast, yeah. They eat every portion of what they catch. I mentioned they hunt green and hawksbill turtles. They eat the turtles raw or grilled or boiled. They eat the fins. They eat the head. They use the blood for cooking. Absolutely nothing is wasted. And the shell is used for belts and a variety of different things. But, yeah, this is them gutting fish. 

>> What would be a delicacy? If they have all these things available to them, what would be something special? >> Probably a cheeseburger. [LAUGHTER] >> A cheeseburger in paradise. >> Right. Cheeseburger in paradise, exactly. >> Well, there are some images that make it look like paradise. >> In many ways it is paradise. It reminded me, as we traveled across the Pacific, of Bruce Chatwin's song lines. The men on the boat sing the world into existence. They sing these songs as they travel. The women are the songwriters, and the men come back after their journeys and they have these seascapes and they say we saw a log here, we saw a reef here, and the women write these songs. 

And then the men, as they're sailing, sing these songs. So they're singing the world into existence or back into existence. But the singing tradition and the oral culture once you get on the islands is just beautiful. And then all the kids have these model sailing canoes. And, as I said, they're in the water all the time. >> What about western religion, which, I think, these areas were fairly intensively visited by missionaries in the late 19th into the 20th century? >> Spanish missionaries and then the Carolines were a German territory for a long time. So there's an influence of German culture, Spanish culture, and now more and more the US culture. But this an alter in the lone church on Satawal. And you can see that the sailing canoe is intrinsic to their existence and their daily life. Most of them are Catholics, by the way. 

Converted Catholics. >> Now, you mentioned earlier that the turtles were hunted almost with a quota system, so is there a sense of conservation traditionally? >> There's a great sense of conservation. Although, big boats from some of the big neighboring islands are coming in and going to the turtle islands, taking eggs, and killing way more turtles than they should. But the chief, before he sends a hunting party to the turtle islands, will say, okay, you are allowed to take 16 turtles and no eggs. So we, Sesario, who was our navigator and captain, we went to the turtle islands and he said we will bring back 12 turtles to Satawal. So they captured 12 turtles. We tied them up and pushed them out to the sailing canoe, to the --, half a mile out as sharks were all around. The turtles were of course bleeding and there were sharks all around us. And that was another time I thought, oh, my God, what have I got myself into. But then they brought the turtles to the islands, and they kill them with spear guns and then tie them up. 

And that's part of the time of plenty, ringing in the time of plenty. >> Did they eat shark? >> They eat shark, yes. They make shark jerky which is delicious. >> It sounds like it would be tough. >> It's remarkably, I don't know what they do, but it's remarkably good. But, yeah, they eat shark, turtle, I'm not sure what else, what other kind of fish. I didn't even recognize. Whatever they gave me, it was delicious. >> Did you have anything that you didn't much care for? >> Raw turtle. Raw turtle was a little bit difficult to eat. 

They cut a slab of meat or of organ, which is a delicacy to them, and they put it in your hand. That's what you expect you to eat. Grilled turtle is some of the most delicious stuff I've ever had, but raw turtle is very difficult to eat. >> I gather there's nothing cold, and you're not going to refrigerate anything? >> No. No refrigeration. >> So you really have to have it fresh, don't you? >> You have to have it fresh. So that's why they kept the turtles, the turtles were alive on the deck of the --. We were transporting them hundreds of miles. It took four days to get to Satawal, so we're sleeping with the turtles. And they keep them alive so the meat is fresh when they arrive on the island. 

>> So they can't really, assuming it's all traditional, which it sounds as if it is, they can't really store anything up. >> No. >> They just have to get through the lean times and enjoy the good times. >> That's exactly right. No, there's not refrigeration, no stocking up on provisions during the winter. >> Were you glad when this trip was over? This 2500 miles with celestial navigation? >> Yeah. I was. It was one of the most remarkable, definitely one of the most remarkable experiences in my life. It's a place I've wanted to go all my life. A place that perhaps one day, if I can summon the courage, I'd like to go back to, but I was happy to get off the open ocean, yeah, to get on land. 

I got sick. I'm not sure what I had. If I had malaria or something, and the trip back was tough. But I was happy when we finally got to Yap, which was this backwater capital of the Federated States of Micronesia. >> It's famous for having this big money. >> Yeah. >> Big stone wheels. >> Big stone money. Exactly, stone money, which was their currency. But when I got on terra firma, finally, I was elated. 

>> Do the inhabitants of the Carolines ever get seasick? It sounds as if there would be plenty of potential for it. >> No. They never, never get seasick. I never got seasick. One thing I can say, I wore a life jacket, I was terrified, but I never got seasick. They never get seasick. They spend their life at sea. >> Do you think that experience of celestial navigation has made you more aware of the stars when you can see them? >> Well, we saw the super moon the other night, and I did think about what perhaps the people of the Caroline Islands were looking at that night. Yeah, it's made me intent on learning my constellations, which I have a vague idea of them. I've spent a lot of time in the woods. 

But no, not enough to navigate by. I might be able to say there's Orion. >> There's the North Star. >> And there's the North Star. That's the extent of it. But yeah, I'd like to learn my constellations. >> Well, James Campbell, thanks for sharing your experiences, your insights into celestial navigation. >> Happy to do it. Thank you for the invitation. >> A great pleasure. 

I'm Norman Gilliland, and I hope you can join me the next time around for University Place Presents.