Edwin Doran Jr., investigating transpacific voyages, mentions the following:
Of sixty cases of inadvertent drifts of Japanese junks into the Pacific, at least a half dozen reached the coast of America between Sitka and the Columbia River and another half dozen were wrecked on the Mexican coast or encountered just offshore. . . . Drift voyages between Asia and America not only are clearly possible but actually have occurred repeatedly in historic time. . . . There appears to be no question that rafts could have crossed the Pacific, repeatedly and in appreciable numbers (Doran 1974, 133-35) [Bruce W. Warren, Blaine M. Yorgason, Harold Brown, New Evidences of Christ in Mesoamerica, Unpublished Manuscript]
“They Were Driven Forth Three Hundred and Forty and Four Days Upon the Water”
Ether 6:11 records the fact that the Jaredites "were driven forth three hundred and forty and four days upon the water." According to Hugh Nibley, the fact that the party spent almost a year on the water even with the winds behind them certainly suggests the Pacific, and recalls many tales of Chinese junks that through the centuries have been driven helplessly before the wind to end up after a year or so at sea stranded on the beaches of our West Coast. [Hugh Nibley, The World of the Jaredites, p. 182]
According to Warren and Palmer, there is an account of Japanese fishermen being caught in a storm taking them across the North Pacific and arriving as far south as Ecuador (Evans, et.al. 1966:63-67). In this case they were upon the waters 377 days, some 33 days longer than the time stated in the Book of Ether. [Bruce W. Warren and David A. Palmer, The Jaredite Saga, ch. 7, unpublished]
In an unpublished manuscript, Bruce Warren cites Edwin Doran, Jr., who while investigating early trans-Pacific voyages cited the following:
Of the sixty cases of inadvertent drifts of Japanese junks into the Pacific, at least a half dozen reached the coast of America between Sitka and the Columbia River and another half dozen were wrecked on the Mexican coast or encountered just offshore. Survivors of such drift voyages were not uncommon, and Japanese slaves were held by Salmon Indians of the northwest coast of America when they first were visited by Whites. . . .
[Bruce W. Warren, unpublished Manuscript]
According to Joseph Allen, the fact that the book of Ether reports that the Jaredites took 344 days to travel from their point of departure to the Promised Land implies a Pacific crossing. Thor Heyerdahl made an Atlantic crossing on a raft from Morocco to the Caribbean in two months. Thus if the Jaredites had departed from the Atlantic side, they would have been forced to travel in circles for 8 or 9 months in order to spend 344 days at sea. [Joseph Allen, Exploring the Lands of the Book of Mormon, p. 260]
Ether 6:11 Three hundred and forty four days upon the water ([Illustration]): Map #5, Voyage of the Ra] [Verneil Simmons, Peoples, Places and Prophecies, p. 98]