NavList:

My expert sailor friend, Erika, invited me to join her for a little sail today... I brought along my sextant, and we tried for a Sun-Venus fix. I had pre-calculated altazm for Venus every 15 minutes for our approximate location, so I was able to find it without much trouble in binoculars before sextant sights. Venus was nearly due east.

First sight: LAN. The Sun was very high, but thanks to Frank Reed's careful explanations of "swinging the arc" =THE RIGHT WAY, I had no trouble at all getting a good altitude. At 17:15 GMT give or take a minute, the Sun's altitude at LAN was 79° 12.

Venus sight: I turned to the spot where I found Venus with my binocular, sextant preset to 53 deg. I could not find it at first. So I looked direct (pointing the horizon view straight at the sky). Found it that way, really easy to see. Now tried again the usual way and got my sight. At 17:17:20 GMT the altitude of Venus was 53° 27.

I won't tell you my position. Something for the group to work out?

btw, my height of eye was about 5 feet. we were sailing on course 090 true at about 7 knots. Venus off the bow. Sun abeam starboard ,but basically straight up!

This was great fun and surprisingly accurate. And so here I sit on my laptop (still miles offshore) connected to the internet by satellite telling you all about my sextant sights. It seems wrong wrong wrong, but I just couldn't wait to tell the story!! 

Josh