How did the Pacific & other islands get settled?

[dead0man]

Well, they probably didn't leave one island to settle another on purpose.  How would they know the islands were even there until they were right on top of them?  No, I suspect they just spent a lot of time out in the open ocean on their boats fishing.  Maybe some of them got caught in a storm, got lost and stumbled upon one looking for home.  Or maybe they saw some birds and followed them back to a new island.  They could navigate by stars, but that will only tell you how far north or south you are...you need some kind of time piece to figure out east/west (or perhaps they knew/know something us Euros never figured out).  I've also read that they used clouds to find islands (a certain type of cloud is only formed over islands), same with ocean swells (type, speed, distance between).