“Mau Voyager” is a three-hour biography of Grand Master Navigator, Mau Piailug, of Satawal, Micronesia, the Pacific Islander who brought back to the Hawaiian people the ancient and lost art of non-instrumental celestial navigation. This film, seven years in the making, features interviews and insights from Mau as well as conversations with his Satawalese and Hawaiian navigational students, including Nainoa Thompson, navigator of the Hokule’a, and Shorty Bertelmann, navigator of the Makali’i. 1976 footage of Hokule’a‘s first voyage from Hawai’i to Tahiti on which Mau navigated is featured; as is the building of Alingno Maisu, the ocean voyaging canoe built by Hawaiian voyagers. This project was led by Big Island residents Clay and Shorty Bertelmann – given as a gift to the people of Micronesia and Mau.

Presented through the generous support of the Richard Smart Fund, the Big Island Film Office and the County of Hawaii Department of Research and Development

Community Event FREE