Kelly Prime

So you might be trying to locate one little island in the Pacific, and you could be out of sight of land.

But if you look up and see a land bird flying overhead, like a type of bird that you know doesn't like to go very far from home, that tells you something.

And it means you're in the radius of some kind of land.

Right.

She did because, you know, like you're saying, when the entire basis of your navigation system is the natural world, even like the tiniest changes to one ocean current or one species of bird can make a massive difference.

Yeah, she actually talked about feral cat colonies on islands and how when there's feral cat colonies, those cats will kill the birds.

And when you don't have the birds, you don't have the birds at sea.

So it's like even one tiny, tiny thing throws off how you can find where you are in the ocean.

It's kind of crazy.

So I also want to mention that Lehua and her colleagues at the Polynesian Voyaging Society are currently doing this big project to circumnavigate the Pacific on traditional voyaging canoes.

It's a 43,000 nautical mile voyage.

And Lehua is one of 400 crew members taking turns doing different legs of this journey.

And the day I talked to Lihua, she was getting ready.

It was literally the day before.

She was getting ready to fly out to start a 2,000-mile journey from the Cook Islands to New Zealand.

And the whole voyage should take about four years.

I think they started in 2023.

Yeah, she was like, I should really, really pack.

I should really pack.

But this wasn't, you know, she's doing one leg of the journey.