How did early voyagers discover islands in Polynesia? | AskHistorians Archive Observer

How did early voyagers discover islands in Polynesia?

by mostlyemptyspace

I just can’t wrap my head around how people set out on boats into the open ocean and discovered all those islands in the South Pacific. Did a bunch of them just die when they didn’t find anything?

Searocksandtrees

Hi, not discouraging further contributions here, but you may be interested in some previous answers on navigation

There are huge gaps between islands in the Pacific. What methods did the Polynesians/Islanders use to discover them and to stay on course between two islands they already knew existed? Do we know how many/what percentage were lost at sea? by u/TheFairyGuineaPig
/u/b1uepenguin in How could Polynesians navigate so well without compasses or sextants and how could they build ships capable of traveling deep ocean?