The Last Navigator, A Young Man, an Ancient Mariner, the Secrets of the Sea
Join The Explorers Club to hear the story of master Micronesian navigator Mau Piailug, whose legendary knowledge of traditional wayfaring techniques and passion for keeping these practices alive made him a cultural hero.
This richly illustrated lecture will take us into a world of ocean navigation largely unknown to the West, a world in which the traditional navigator’s only directional tools are the stars, the ocean swells and the flight paths of birds.
In 1983 and 1984 Steve Thomas spent eleven months on Satawal Island and in the Western Carolines as an apprentice to Mau Piailug, then one of the last paliuw, captains fully initiated in the Talk of Navigation, the closely guarded, ancient practices around reading the cosmos and the seas.
Steve chronicled his experiences and the navigational techniques in the book The Last Navigator, first published in 1987, and a documentary film of the same title for PBS in 1988. Now some forty years on Steve has updated the stories with a new generation of Satawalese islanders and researchers in the revised and fully illustrated edition of The Last Navigator.
Note: This event was originally scheduled for February 2nd, but has been moved to February 5th.
This in-person event at the Explorers Club Headquarters will include an audience Q&A.
RESERVATIONS
This will be an in-person lecture at Explorers Club Headquarters.
In-person tickets are $20 for Members, and $35 for the General Public.
Check-in will begin at 6:00 pm, with a beer and wine reception from 6:00 – 7:00 pm
Steve Thomas
Steve Thomas is familiar to television viewers as the two-time Emmy award-winning host of This Old House, Renovation Nation, and Save Our History. But he is also an experienced home builder and sailor. Beginning in 1977, he sailed a 43-foot wooden sloop from England to San Francisco via the Panama Canal, Galapagos, Marquesas, and Hawaii. In the early 1980’s, he journeyed to the remote Micronesian island of Satawal to learn the ancient technique of star path navigation, an experience that resulted in this book as well as a documentary for the PBS series Adventure.
