Tahiti of ocean, was made possible by using outrigger canoes that were up to twenty or thirty meters long and could transport families as well as domestic animals. In 1769, for instance, James Cook mentions a great traditional ship ("va'a") in Tahiti that was long, and could be propelled by sail or paddles. In 2010, an expedition on a simple outrigger canoe with a sail retraced the route back from Tahiti to Asia. Before the arrival of the Europeans the island was divided into different chiefdoms, very precise territories dominated by a single clan. These chiefdoms were linked to each other
1769 Transit of Venus observed from Tahiti vast international endeavor. Even though the Seven Years' War was going on between Great Britain and France, the British Admiralty granted safe passage for French astronomer, Alexandre Guy Pingré on his way to view the 1761 transit. During Cook's journey to Tahiti, the French government instructed all its men-of-war not to harm the "Endeavour", since it was ‘out on enterprises of service to all mankind'. With the Venus Transits, astronomers of the eighteenth century illustrated unity in the scientific community. The entente, however, passed by noted astronomers and surveyors Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon, who were attacked by the French,