As I drew each one I tried to imagine what the lines meant. I don't understand how to read the charts at all, I simply admire their elegance and arcane relationship with sea, canoe, waves and sky. Apparently only the maker of each chart knew how to interpret it. I understand from a little reading on the subject that the curved lines seem to represent swells in the sea, and the intersections mark the position of the Marshall Islands in the Pacific Ocean. Shells were often tied to the sticks to mark the positions of islands, and gauge the distance from a canoe; prevailing winds and currents of the seas are also somehow indicated.
The images here are experiments drawn on my iPad, feeling my way through the subject and exploring how I can express the charts' relationships with the wilderness of ocean through which they guided men in nothing but small canoes.