NavList:
A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
From: Michael Bradley
Date: 2016 Dec 11, 06:36 -0800
There on the side of my sextant is a timer, calibrated to the nearest second. I have a book called an almanac which tells me the position of all the brightest objects in the sky every second of every day. Using the sextant to measure the height of an object above the horizon, and timing the measurement, I can calculate how far away the object is. Doing the same for a second object I can calculate my exact position. I'm practicing.
Along the coast is where I keep my sailing boat. When I sail it out beyond the anchored ships, the lighthouses, and the islands, to where there is nothing to see except the sea and sky, I can still find my exact position. So I can sail to anywhere I wish, any time, and find my way back again.
140 words
Michael Bradley
