I saw this Ryukyan article a few days ago. Those islands were settled around 30 kBC before even Beringia. The finding here is that the currents along China are such that hardly anybody gets to the Ryukyan Islands from Japan or from Taiwan by accident. You have to navigate there.
'Tis still possible, probable even, that those islands were stumbled upon first during a tropical storm. But then the fisherman (somehow) knew how to get back home, or near-enough. He was then able to report "this current usually goes northeast; so, tack north". Or, you know, the other way.
On the assumption that the Asian islands ain't special, this further implies that some basic navigation was known across all the coasts of South Asia. Andamans, for a start. Ceylon maybe. All those Gulf Coast islets.
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