I ended up going down a similar path only in the Atlantic.
Crosby’s "Ecological Imperialism which I posted about here.
One of Crosby’s footnotes led me to: The Conquest of the North Atlantic by G.J. Marcus
The early voyages into the deep waters of the Atlantic rank among the greatest feats of exploration. In tiny, fragile vessels the Irish monks searched for desolate places in the ocean in which to pursue their vocation; their successors, the Vikings, with their superb ship-building skills, created fast, sea-worthy craft which took them far out into the unknown, until they finally reached Greenland and America.
G.J. Marcus looks at the history of these expeditions not only as a historian, but also as a practical sailor. Besides the problem of what these early explorers actually achieved, he poses the even more fascinating question of how they did it, without compass, quadrant, or astrolabe
First ran into Crosby from *"The Measure of Reality" Quantification and Western Society* which I got from the library but liked enough to buy a copy. Been working off the the footnotes and also read
Revolution in Time: Clocks and the Making of the Modern World by David S. Landes