Today I signed up for a remote learning ASA107 – Celestial Navigation. I’ve always been fascinated by the navigation side of sailing and find the concepts fairly easy to grasp. The ultimate step is to navigate using just your watch, the heavens and a trusty sextant. While I don’t think I’ll ever travel without GPS, the sextant is an invaluable backup in case of events that either take out the boats electronics (like lightening) or a systemic issue with the GPS system itself. I also half fancy trying to travel a significant distance relying on dead reckongng and celestial but I wonder if I could ever resist the temptation to see where I am using the GPS. I’m now looking forward to getting the materials to read. If they arrive in time I may just take them to the BVIs to while away some of the plane and other travel time.
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