Polynesian sailors crossed thousands of miles of open ocean with no instruments

Long before the compass or GPS existed, Polynesian navigators settled islands scattered across millions of square miles of the Pacific using only the stars, wave patterns, cloud formations, and bird behavior to find their way. The technique, called wayfinding, was passed down orally between generations of navigators. In 1976, the canoe Hokule'a proved the method still worked by sailing from Hawaii to Tahiti without any modern instruments.

— David Lewis, We, the Navigators: The Ancient Art of Landfinding in the Pacific — 1972; Hokule'a voyage 1976
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