MANILA, Philippines?The team of explorer Yoshiharu Sekino seeks to retrace one of the migration routes believed to have been taken by the ancestors of the Japanese. Sekino?s group uses small wooden sailing boats called Pakur and Jomon.

Black Current

If the Atlantic has the Gulf Stream, the Pacific has the Black Current. Also known as Kuroshio and Japan Current, it is a branch of the North Equatorial Current that flows northeast from the Philippine Sea, north along the eastern coast of Taiwan, past southeastern Japan and onward to the North Pacific.

North Equatorial Current's counterparts are the North Pacific Current to the north and the California Current to the east.

Its warm air moderates the climate of Taiwan and Japan while it nourishes the coral reefs of Japan.

The Black Current is one of the paths taken by the earliest groups of people who set foot and settled in Japan 3,000 to 5,000 years ago, according to Prof. Yoshiharu Sekino.