Meet the Native Hawaiian wayfinder who helped shape Disney's "Moana" - USA TODAY

• Kala Baybayan Tanaka connects to her practice done the past Polynesian signifier of wayfinding
• Navigators usage the elements astir them to steer voyaging canoes, similar successful "Moana."
• Tanaka perpetuates wayfinding done educating others and the adjacent generation.

When regular radical look up astatine the nighttime sky, they mightiness spot the moon, the stars, oregon possibly adjacent a planet. But Kala Baybayan Tanaka is not a regular person. When she looks up astatine the nighttime sky, she sees a way – a way forward, some virtually and figuratively.

As an apprentice navigator and Native Hawaiian voyager, Maui-born Tanaka taps into her practice to observe nature – the stars supra her, the upwind against her skin, the flotsam and jetsam moving successful the water, the birds soaring past – to sail across the water successful a voyaging canoe, oregon wa'a, to different Pacific islands. She is besides portion of the increasing fig of women who are partaking successful the once-male-only tradition.

"This was portion of that exertion and that cognition our ancestors utilized to traverse the oceans. It wasn’t that the oceans separated us, but the oceans connected us," Tanaka said.

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Predating compasses and clocks, Polynesian sailors navigated the unfastened water utilizing the earthy satellite astir them. It's akin to the mode birds migrate southbound and instrumentality home, oregon radical utilized the North Star to presumption themselves.

Navigators similar Tanaka's household and others support the past signifier live today, which is meaningful since determination was a time when European settlers banned the Hawaiian connection and suppressed Hawaiian practices similar hula until a taste resurgence successful the 1970s.

Her precocious father, pwo (master) navigator Kalepa Baybayan, was 1 of the archetypal unit members of the Hōkūleʻa, the archetypal accepted voyaging canoe built successful modern times arsenic a milestone successful reviving wayfinding. In 1976, the Hōkūleʻa made quality erstwhile it sailed betwixt Hawaii and Tahiti without modern-day navigational instruments, confirming the technological validity of the past Polynesian creation and subject and amplifying taste pride. 

Although Tanaka grew up astir the canoe, it wasn't until she was successful assemblage studying Hawaiian connection and studies that Tanaka decided to articulation her begetter connected a voyage. "(It was) an important clip successful my life, questioning who I was arsenic a Hawaiian and my identity," she said. 

She remembers feeling intimidated connected her archetypal voyage with her father, which launched from Oahu to Lahaina in 2006 and took little than 24 hours. Not lone was she the lone pistillate onboard but the unit members spoke lone successful Hawaiian. Her anxiousness melted distant erstwhile they took off.

"My begetter was my foundation, my rock, and I knew I would beryllium OK," she said. Her begetter taught her and the different students however to look astatine the water swells and usage them to clasp the people erstwhile steering. "When the stars came out, helium was telling america their names and purpose," she said. "After that, I ne'er stopped." 

How bash wayfinders navigate?

For a consciousness of what it's similar to navigate without modern instruments, Tanaka said navigators volition look astatine implicit 200 stars and enactment if they look to beryllium rising oregon setting. "You cognize that this is this prima and the absorption it represents," she said. "If you tin bash that, you tin usage it arsenic a instrumentality to orient."

She added, "They look to determination successful a direction, and that's wherefore reflection (kilo) is precise important." The navigator stands astatine the backmost of the canoe, feet wide to enactment balanced and consciousness the rhythm of the water swaying beneath.

During the day, Tanaka uses the prima until it hits a definite tallness and past observes upwind and water swells to clasp direction. At night, depending connected the visibility, she volition navigate utilizing the stars, moon, planets, upwind and swells.

To navigate, she measures the upwind and water swells against the stars to find the absorption she's coming from. Once she knows that, she tin usage the stars arsenic a instrumentality to clasp a absorption and ever recognize her location.

"As we get person to land, we are looking for definite taxon of onshore birds that food successful the ocean, stationary clouds wherever the prima does not look to penetrate, adjacent definite unreality formations and colour tin bespeak determination is onshore beneath it," she said.

On committee the canoe for sometimes weeks astatine a time, the unit sleeps unneurotic successful a enactment wrong the canoe's hulls and devour what they drawback from the sea. The navigator is often awake for galore hours a day, making definite the canoe stays the course. Together, the unit braves the elements. 

When she sails, Tanaka feels "very connected to my past and wherever I came from," she said. "I consciousness precise connected to the entity supra maine and the water beneath me. I consciousness precise connected to the unit and the canoe. We're a family, we're an ʻohana."

'It really tested me'

To Tanaka, 1 of the astir peculiar voyages volition ever beryllium her past sail with her dada successful 2017. The 2 sailed from Oahu to Tahiti aboard the Hikianalia, a sister canoe to the Hōkūleʻa, successful which Tanaka was a first-time captain. 

"I ever bespeak connected that – the narration arsenic a begetter and girl and a pupil and teacher," she said. Her begetter died astir a twelvemonth ago. She was "grateful" for the "rare" accidental to sail with her father.

"At the aforesaid time, it was a immense learning acquisition and it truly tested me," she added. "My father was the sail maestro in this voyage and this was my archetypal agelong voyage captaining truthful I was nervous, but his mentorship successful mentation for this and connected the voyage surely made this a success. It’s a immense responsibility."

After astir a decennary of voyaging, Tanaka said she's successful a abstraction wherever she feels similar she's inactive learning but feels a kuleana (responsibility) to thatch the adjacent procreation and perpetuate the skills. "They're going to instrumentality it further, they're starting astatine an earlier property than I am," she said. "The bulk of what you larn is erstwhile you're retired determination doing it."

Perpetuating the wayfinding culture

As an pedagogue with Hui o Wa'a Kaulua, Maui's Voyaging Society, she takes kids arsenic young arsenic precocious schoolers retired connected the canoe for time sails with her voyaging society.

"In the beginning, it’s kinda pugnacious connected them. They are trying to fig things retired and it is physically demanding," she said. "But, by the end, I spot a alteration successful them, successful that they person a amended knowing of what they are doing and what they request to do, I surely spot their assurance turn and that is simply a rewarding feeling for me."

Tanaka besides educates guests astatine the Four Seasons Resort Maui's Hawaiian Star Stories events, wherever she shows radical however to spot antithetic stars with the bare oculus and teaches them astir wayfinding. 

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In fact, Disney tapped Tanaka and different women from her voyaging nine erstwhile researching for the 2016 deed movie "Moana," which is astir an independent, daring young female character not truthful antithetic from Tanaka. She helped consult Disney during a monthlong voyaging limb she was connected from Virginia to New York City. Sailing during the day, the canoe stopped astatine each larboard going northward for assemblage and schoolhouse outreach engagements arsenic good arsenic protocol and ceremonies. The nights spent connected the canoe were "a batch colder than Hawaii," Tanaka said, remembering bundling up with the close cogwheel to enactment warm. 

Carrying connected the values of her ancestors and chap wayfinders, Tanaka prompts radical to bespeak connected their narration with the ocean.

"It's thing that connects america and we request to instrumentality attraction of it," she said. "What I bash volition interaction my cousins implicit determination and what my cousins bash implicit determination volition interaction maine here." 

To her, the aboriginal seems bright. "I anticipation to spot a caller procreation of voyagers. My anticipation is that we proceed to sail and that canoes go much normalized," she said. "Our civilization is living, it is simply a immense portion of wherever we travel from and wherever we're going successful the future." At a clip erstwhile clime alteration feels insurmountable and options request to beryllium explored, she thinks tapping into indigenous cognition "is truthful overmuch much applicable now." 

"We each collectively created our problems and we tin each enactment to making it better, not lone for america but for the sky, the water and each of that," she said.