NavList:
A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
From: Frank Reed
Date: 2025 Aug 28, 07:24 -0700
Richard Toohey, you wrote:
"...Mercator projections. Never used them for great circle planning but they sure were helpful navigating between atolls in the Tuamotus!"
That sounds fascinating! I, for one, would love to hear more about this. How did a Mercator chart enter the picture? And what did you use it for in the Tuamotus? Also, when was this? Did you have specific printed regional charts as well as atoll charts? Or would that have been luxury?
One of my favorite features of "Bing Maps" is its portrayal of atolls like the Tuamotus and the Marshall Islands. It's easy to see, as in the map image below, that you will bump into something! Many other more traditional mapping products, including traditional globes, modern globe apps, and Google Maps, fail to highlight the vast regions blocked by the reefs and those razor-thin islets that define the boundaries of the atolls and their lagoons.
Frank Reed
