NavList:

Hello Frank,

you touch on one of the issues I have about posting here. The level of conversation is quite baffling at times. I like it but wow my little brain sometimes explodes.

I have a 1940s sextant and can get fixes from my backyard overlooking the ocean to .1 of a nm. I didn't know my height above sea level but after heaps of sights using my kids to call the times I worked out it to be 49' ASL. I was taught Astro nav at sea by the navigator of a warship. I would have an Astro nav ticket but for the passage from the gulf to Darwin was completely clouded. Not one sight by day or evening. 
I now have an old sailing boat and use a compass, chart and walker log for coastal nav. People say I am bonkers but I know where I am. Do they? Well with GPS of course they do. At 25 knots, At 5 knots time is in my favour!

My point is that I know enough to use the tables and plot a sight. Most of the discussion here is way beyond my ken. Maybe I should use it to stretch me.   

As an aside the very best book I know of to simplify it all and get going is Celestial Navigation by Jeff Toghill. Follow his method and the scales fall from thine eyes.

I am no genius at maths but with that book even I can work out where I am. One day I will try the scary lunars!

PS I work with a young person from Torres Straight. We were looking at a star chart on the news and he casually mentioned... oh we use them to go between islands. He is 24.