"TOWARDS RAHITI

Well, here is me holding the Proof Copy of my book about the Austronesian voyaging peoples.

The book is named "Towards Rahiti" and you will know how that fits in when you read the book!

After some months of patient plodding and waiting - even waiting weeks for a decent sunrise shot for the cover during a long rainy spell - we are well under way now to release the book late April 2013.

NEW BOOK

If you take a look at the Pacific Ocean, you will soon realise just how vast it is.

So how did Stone Age people, with none of our technologies, find their way across such vast distances of ocean?

I have written a book about this adventure - surely one of the great voyaging adventures of all time.

The story traces a family caught up in a need to find a new homeland, and tells the story of just how they did that, and of all the things that happened to them along the way.

The book is based on my modest research of these Austronesian people and tells what might have happened to them, good and bad. The story is a historical adventure yarn, written in a down-to-early style, and does not have one swear word in it!  Children can read it.  Older folks will find it interesting.

The book is called "TOWARDS RAHITI" and soon will go to the printers.

I'll let you all know when it can be purchase for a modest sum.

NAVIGATION WITHOUT GADGETS

If you want to learn more about just HOW did the Stone Age, Austronesian people find their way across vast distances of empty ocean - without maps, without compasses nor sextants, then there is a book you must read.

David Lewis, sailor and navigator from London, actually went to today's Micronesia to an island where it was known that old sailors still used traditional methods for navigation at sea. He lived and sailed with these knowledgeable people and learned from them, earning their respect.

He recorded for posterity what he learned in two books:

"We the Navigators" and "The Voyaging Stars"

These books are still readily available. 

The ocean navigators he sailed with had advanced 'star maps' in their minds and knew many locations by the stars above.

One marvels at what skills modern man has lost.  The younger islanders now use outboard motor boats and GPS.  Thank goodness there are those among us like David Lewis who have recorded the amazing skills of so called 'primitive peoples'.

WHY DID SOME CULTURES DEVELOP FASTER THAN OTHERS?

Ever stop to think why some peoples advanced faster and further than others?

For example, why did the Australian aborigines remain at their Stone Age stage, and the American Indians, and the Eskimos, while other people such as the Europeans, Chinese and perhaps the Austronesian people developed technologies to solve their problems and undertake major explorations?  Why did that happen?

This is a question that I puzzled over and led me to write about the Austronesian peoples and their Pacific Ocean explorations of the late Stone Age.

Many of the answers came from a book recommended by my son in London:
"Guns, Germs and Steel', by Jared Diamond, Vintage, 2005, ISBN 9780099302780.

Jared Diamond traces the reasons behind differing rates of progress among the  major population groups of our world, and I was especially interested in Chapter 17 'Speedboat to Polynesia' as it related to what I had been thinking about:

"HOW DID PEOPLE FIND THEIR WAY RIGHT ACROSS THE PACIFIC OCEAN?'

This book started me delving into the history of the Stone Age explorers who first discovered the islands of the vast, hitherto unpopulated Pacific Ocean.

The result of my modest research is my book nearing completion" "TOWARDS RAHITI".

There is much  more information over in the INFORMATION PAGES that will interest you if you have ever wondered, as I did, about the peopling of the Pacific Ocean.

FORTHCOMING BOOK

For some time now I have been working on a story about what it was like to be part of the great, slow migration of the Austronesian people as as they pushed out into the unexplored, and empty  Pacific Ocean.

They were the first humans to get there.

Based on my research of this subject, I have written a story about a Stone Age  family who had to take part in an adventurous voyage of discovery. It's fiction, but the events could have happened. The story is set in 1600 BC and shows what had to be done to undertake such a voyage into the unknown, and the dangers of what perhaps must have happened to some of the explorers. The story will give one an idea of what it must have been like on such an adventure.

The book is titled:  'TOWARDS  RAHITI' , and I will later announce when the book is published.

INFORMATION PAGES

I am beginning to add "INFO.  PAGES" to my blog so that information about the exploration of the Pacific Ocean by Stone Age people will be permanently available.

The next Info. Page I will add will be: "How did they cross oceans?"

The Posts will  cover other aspects of the subject- and I hope you will enjoy reading my blog.

HOW DID THEY DO THAT?

Take a look at a map of the vast Pacific Ocean.

Ever wonder: how on earth did anyone find their way across those vast expanses of ocean, without the aid of  compass or sextant? or GPS???

Adventurous Stone Age explorers DID find their way across the Pacific, settling islands as they did so.

All over 2000 years before Europeans "discovered" the Pacific Islands.

I am going to set up Information Pages on this blog to tell what I have learned about these early explorers - and its a fascinating story indeed.

I am working on the pages now and will post shortly.

Please keep an eye on this blog if you are interested in how things happen.