[norwaypinesavage]

" relied solely on the stars, sun and wind for their bearings."

Of course, the REAL settlers didn't know that Okinawa even existed, much less where it was located.

[Jonty30]

Island migrations were guided by birds.
They didn’t the islands were there, but they knew they were because of birds.

[wally_bert]

Unless some ancient aliens gave them paper maps.

[VanDeKoik]

I wish someone would figure out how these people got into those tiny canoes and just rowed out with no idea what was there or how the hell they got back.

We just accept the story at face value like it was perfectly normal.