The current voyage and circumnavigation of the Pacific takes Infinity on a 3 year expedition

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The current voyage and circumnavigation of the Pacific takes Infinity on a 3 year expedition from South East Asia through Micronesia to Hawaii, then through Polynesia and ultimately to Melanesia visiting respectively:

Atoll

Thailand April 09, Singapore, Malaysia, Philippines July 09, Caroline’s (Palau and Federated States of Micronesia with Pohnpei, Chuuk and Kosrae) Aug. – Sept. 09, Marshall Islands Oct. 09, Hawaii Nov. 09, Marquesas March 2010, Tuamotu, Society Islands (including Tahiti) Sept. 2010, Cooks, American Samoa, Tonga, Independent Samoa, Tokelau, Phoenix (Kiribati), Wallis and Futuna, Tuvalu Jan. 2011, Gilbert (Kiribati), Fiji May 2011, Vanuatu, Salomon’s Nov. 2011 and onwards yet to be decided.

The route may have to be altered and timing may change due to the unpredictability of weather conditions, technical malfunctions or force majeure.
Especially challenging is the eastwards crossing of the north Pacific between Palau and Hawaii against prevailing winds but avoiding cyclone prone areas.

Micronesia, which means "small islands", is spread over 3 million miles of the Pacific and includes over 2000 islands. These tropical islands are situated 5,150 km west-southwest of Honolulu, and about three-quarters of the way between Hawaii and Indonesia. The distance from one end of Micronesia to the other is 2,040 nautical miles. Many of these islands are so small and remote that they are not included on most world maps.

Micronesia's tiny islands are the result of volcanic activity millions of years ago and are extremely varied in geology and culture. Micronesia's geological features range from the sprawling atolls of the Marshalls and the Gilberts, to the steaming volcanic peaks of the Carolines, and the uplifted limestone plateaus of the Marianas. The islands are covered by tropical jungles and flanked by some of the deepest seas on earth, with dazzling reefs teeming with a cornucopia of marine life. These pristine waters offer unsurpassed snorkeling and diving. Some of the world's best diving sites are found around Palau, where three ocean currents converge. In Chuuk, the lagoon bed holds an entire Japanese fleet, frozen in time where it sank during WWII.

Micronesians are descendant from a mixture of Melanesians, Filipinos and Polynesians. They were masters of seafaring. In the past, they used large canoes up to 100 ft long made of plants and coconut fiber. Their ocean going vessels were often larger and faster than the ships of the European explorers, holding more than a hundred passengers. Without compasses or maps, Micronesians navigated by using the sun and memorizing ancient charts detailing star patterns.

Dance and song are the most important art forms of Micronesia, conveying the legends and history of the people. Because of the generally differentiated roles of men and women in traditional Micronesian cultures, few dances involve men and women dancing together.

Micronesia was under European domination before WWI. After WWII, the USA took over much of the administration of the region. Today, Micronesia is divided into 5 independent nation-states (Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, Nauru and Palau) and 3 U.S. territories (Guam, Wake Island and Northern Mariana Islands)

Tourism has inevitably affected life and traditions on islands such as Guam and Saipan, where one can indulge in every modern comfort and luxury. However, the most traditional lifestyle, characterized by giant stone money, grass skirts and “men's houses”, may still be found on the idyllic island of Yap. The ruins of the great stone cities of Pohnpei's Nan Madol and Kosrae's Lelu give one a glimpse of the largely unknown and mysterious past.

Polynesia, meaning many islands, is generally defined as the islands within the Polynesian triangle, with Hawaii, New Zealand and Easter Island as its three corners. The main island groups located within this triangle are Samoa, Tonga, the Cook Islands and French Polynesia. The base line separates Samoa and Tonga in Polynesia from Fiji in Melanesia and the Gilbert Islands in Micronesia. Within the Polynesian triangle, the greatest distance from north to south is roughly 5,000 miles, from west to east about 4,000 miles. Other Polynesian island groups outside of this triangle include Tuvalu, Wallis and Futuna and a number of outlying small islands of Papua New Guinea, the Solomons, the Caroline Islands, and Vanuatu. With a few exceptions, the Polynesian islands lie south of the equator.

In the Pacific region, there is an important distinction between "high" (volcanic) islands, "low" (coral) islands and raised coral islands. Tahiti, a typical high island, is relatively large with steep slopes, rich plant life, and many waterfalls and rushing streams. Coastal plains are absent or extremely limited on high islands. Atolls (ring-shaped islands made of coral) are the most common low islands in Polynesia. These are typically "desert islands" that are low-lying, narrow, and sandy with few, if any, surface streams. Low islands have less biodiversity than high islands.

Polynesians are considered to be descendants of a subset of sea-migrating Austronesian people. The tracing of Polynesian languages, which are all members of the Oceanic languages family, places their prehistoric origins in the Malay archipelago.

Polynesia can be divided into two distinct cultural groups: East Polynesia and West Polynesia. The culture of West Polynesia (comprising of the groups of Tonga, Niue, Samoa and the northwestern Polynesian outliers) is conditioned to high populations with strong institutions of marriage and well-developed judicial, monetary and trading traditions. Eastern Polynesian cultures are highly adapted to smaller islands and atolls, principally the Cook Islands, Tahiti, the Tuamotus, the Marquesas, Hawaii, Rapa Nui and smaller central-pacific groups.

Farming, fishing, out-rigger canoe construction and navigation were highly developed skills because the population of an entire island depended on them. Navigators were highly respected and each island maintained a house of navigation with a canoe-building area. Land was collectively owned by families and tribes, and there were nobles and commoners.

As well as being great navigators, Polynesians were great artists and artisans. Their body decoration and jewelry are of world renown to this day.

The concept of tapu (taboo, in English) regulated Polynesian life. It referred to anything forbidden due to sacredness. There were rules that served to protect people and nature through forbidding certain actions such as prohibitions against taking certain plants or fish that were in danger of extinction.

Polynesian religion changed dramatically with the coming of European missionaries in the early part of the nineteenth century. There were considerable variation in religious ideas and practices throughout Polynesia in what is known as precontact (before European contact) practices. In Hawaii, for instance, chiefs were genealogically related to gods and, as a result, were believed to possess sacred power called mana.

Today however, most Polynesians are followers of Christianity. Some traditional beliefs and mythologies have been incorporated into Christian ideology. Similarly, Christian hymns have had considerable influence in the style of vocal music in Polynesia. The Tahitian vocal music known as himene (from the English word "hymn") blends European counterpoint (two or more lines of music sung at the same time) with Tahitian drone-style singing.

One of the most well-known Polynesian musical instruments is the Hawaiian ukulele. It is the Hawaiian version of the Portuguese mandolin, which came to the islands with Portuguese immigrants in the 1870s. The primary use of Hawaiian flutes and drums was to accompany the graceful and erotic dance known as the hula.

Depictions of Polynesian life by contemporary artists such as Gaugin and by tourist iconography, musicals, and films, spread the notions of an almost blissfully carefree and easy way of life, devoid of harsh extremes of any type, persisted into the 21st century in the popular imagination. Far from conforming to Western notions of paradise, traditional Polynesian cultures were in fact complex, highly specialized, and adapted to environments that could be quite hostile.

The circumstances of contemporary life also reflect more than a century of colonial disruption to indigenous cultural traditions. For instance, the nuclear-testing program in French Polynesia, which started in 1962, not only caused devastating environmental damages, but also changed the economy and the distribution of population considerably. Many French Polynesians left their villages for urban areas, causing the previous era’s self-sufficient subsistence economy to shift to a wage-based system. Apart from French Polynesia, other towns such as Apia (Samoa), Pago Pago (American Samoa),and Nuku’alofa (Tonga) have attracted many people from rural areas. Many Polynesians have moved to New Zealand (especially Auckland) and the United States (especially Hawaii, California, Washington, and Oregon). By the early 21st century, more Samoans and Cook Islanders were living away from their original islands than on them.

Although colonial history and migration have instigated a great deal of cultural change, the indigenous peoples of this region are also striving to revive their customs and values. Fluency in Polynesian language and the revival of indigenous literature have been a strong focus area. The Polynesian Voyaging Society was founded in 1973 to evaluate various theories of Polynesian seafaring and settlement and preserve traditional methods of navigation. Festive activities, which have always been a significant part of Pacific culture, has provided a vehicle for expressing contemporary indigenous identities.

Melanesia is a subregion of Oceania separated from Polynesia and Micronesia by the Andersite Line. Bound by the Equator and the Tropic of Cancer & Australia, Melanesian islands form an arc from New Guinea to Norfolk Island, spanning across the Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, New Caledonia, Fiji, Norfolk Island and numerous smaller islands.

Melanesia literally means "islands of the black-skinned people", which refers to some of its inhabitants' skin tone described as 'deep blue black'. The original dwellers of Melanesia are thought to be ancestors of the present-day Papuan-speaking people, who reached the Pacific islands 35,000 years ago.

Amongst Melanesia's characteristics is the clear distinction between the bush people of the interior and the salt water people of the coast, which holds true especially in terms of ancestral practices and traditional settlement patterns. In all areas, most groups traditionally lived in scattered autonomous homesteads and hamlets rather than villages. However, in coastal environments settlements were larger and more permanent while interior areas housing structure were smaller and ephemeral or mobile in nature. Despite their differences, 'interior' and 'coastal' communities were connected by means of trading partnerships and exchange systems. Such networks carried salt, shell, and other objects from coasts to interiors, and forest products, such as black palm, from interiors to coasts. Interior communities' lifestyles revolved around the ancient root-crop cultivation systems of Papuan and Austronesian peoples, which depended on swidden or slash-and-burn horticulture. The primary plant domesticates were yams and taro. Other domesticates plantains, sago, pandanus, leafy greens and sugarcane.

In traditional Melanesian communities, women benefited from a central place in everyday domestic politics and were accorded importance in rituals and as healers. However Polygamy was relatively widespread (at least for prominent leaders) and residential separation of men and women was common. Women and children typically occupied domestic dwellings, while men resided in clubhouses or cult houses, a focus of ritual and military solidarity common in many areas of Melanesia. In the mountainous interior of New Guinea, men’s longhouses were also primarily built as defenses against the threat of raiding. The cultural orientations of many Melanesian peoples were shaped by a warrior ethic (i.e: ethos of bravery, violence, vengeance, and honour) and religious imperatives that promoted aggression).

Melanesian populations had a strong orientation to ancestors and the past, with ancestral ghosts and other spirits participating in everyday social life. Religion and magic were not clearly distinguishable. Similarly, Melanesian art and dance forms were clearly influenced by the overwhelming occurrence of rituals and magical practices. On many islands, carved patterns and other art forms like mask-making had strong religious significance, some artifacts were even created exclusively for ceremonies and discarded afterwards, like the “Malanggan carvings” of New Ireland.

Many peoples, however, decorated virtually every object not immediately discarded, however utilitarian. Melanesian dance, music, and oral traditions have been less documented and preserved due to their immaterial nature but also because the advent of colonialism forced native religions and traditions to give way under the combined pressures of Christianity and capitalist development.

Since the 1970s, multinational companies have moved into Melanesia bringing additional changes, especially in Papua New Guinea and Solomon Islands, where most of the international mining and logging investments in Melanesia are centered.

Today, all the countries of Melanesia except New Caledonia are independent. Most of Melanesia's countries have Western-type governments and the formerly classless Melanesian societies have become class-stratified, with an emerging elite constituting of politicians, public servants, and entrepreneurs.
Amongst the new elite, cultural revivalism has become a prominent theme. Ceremonial exchange, dance, music, and oral traditions are amongst the traditional practices which are increasingly perceived as a valuable source of identity for Melanesians to express and affirm themselves.

Other traditions like the “kula” exchange system from the Massim region (in southeastern Papua New Guinea) have been perpetuated without any conscious effort, and are still carried on by people from all paths of life.