What Kind Of Tools did Hawaiians use to Navigate?

Hawaiians used many tools in nature tonavigate. For instance, Hawaiians used stars, ocean swells, winds, bird patterns, clouds the moon andthe sun. Canis Major is one of the main constellations used fornavigation. Sirius or A'a means "Glowing" and can be found in CanisMajor. Sirius is the brightest star. When traveling to Tahiti, Siriusis a very important star because it is directly over Tahiti. A'a isone of the zenith stars.

Swells are below the oceans waves. They helpnavigators to steer. It comes in regular patterns caused by wind andstorm systems. On cloudy days and overcast nights navigators used swell directions to keep on course.

The wind helped hurry their journey. Thenavigator feels the direction of the wind on his face. And dependingon how much the wind fills the sails and pushes his canoe, he changeshis course direction. He is very careful to watch for storms by a bigshift in the wind direction and air temperature.

The navigator knew which bird flew far out to sea and which stayed closeto land. Even when the navigator could not see through the fog, hecould tell how far away he was from land by the sounds of thebirds.

When the navigator saw clouds with the haze ofgreen, it meant that land was near because it could be an islandsvegetation. If the clouds had a haze of blue, it could be alagoon.

The sun always rises in the East and sets inthe West. And that helped navigators with direction. If the navigatorwas heading South, the rising sun would be on his left.

The moon was the crews calender. There were twokinds of calenders. Every day, the size and shape of the moon wouldchange to tell them what day it was. The other kind of calender was acounting rope. After every day they would tie a knot in the rope tosee how many days they have been at sea.

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