...new horizons will appear

While the Octopus was impressive in it's own ways, yesterday's arrival Alingano Maisu is much more so to me.

The micronesians explored the vast waters of the Pacific in little sailing canoes - using just the stars, waves and birds to navigate - long before the Europeans managed to reach the region.

This ancient knowledge of how to navigate the seas has had a renewed interest in recent years, especially in Polynesia, with a lot of help from the last surviving Micronesian master navigator Mau Piailug.

Maisu was built as a gift and tribute to Mau and Micronesia by polynesian voyagers. It was sailed from Hawaii to Yap earlier this year and is now serving as a school ship to teach young micronesians the old art of wayfinding. She just returned to the main islands of Yap from a trip to Ngulu. I am looking into any possibilities to join the crew on a shorter trip.


The diving down south yesterday was really nice. Good visibility, nice walls and schools of giant Bumphead Parrotfish as well as smaller creatures such as Leaf Scorpionfish.

As always - more photos over on my Flickr pages.

Hmmm... for some reason the posting dates and times on the blog seem to get confused... they are supposed to be in local Yap time... will try to sort that out...