Steve Hodges, 2014 SHTP Winner, and 2012 winner of the Navagation Trophy, teaches celestial navigation in the Santa Barbara area. You might want to see if Steve has any recommendations, or plan on a few days spent in Santa Barbara.
Steve Hodges, 2014 SHTP Winner, and 2012 winner of the Navagation Trophy, teaches celestial navigation in the Santa Barbara area. You might want to see if Steve has any recommendations, or plan on a few days spent in Santa Barbara.
I enjoy celestial navigation and will be happy to discuss approaches toward a practical working knowledge. Sun sights (noon and running fix) are a great starting point. I also have an embarrassing number of sextants which im happy to show off. Steve dot hodges at cox dot net.
I'm certainly no expert in anti-zombie tactics, different department. Anecdotally they do seem to avoid vesseles where deep questions are pondered, for example "why's a raven like a writing desk?" or "how many pancakes does it take to fill a dog house?" A Feynmann sum over all possibilities is, I'm told, a sure way of, not only addressing tgese meta-physical ponderances, but alsi a means of driving zombiesque thoughts from your hull and swim ladder. Hope this helps....
Yes......or if you anchor you need to have a Zombie guard....probably like a squirrel guard just bigger.......
For our 25th Wedding Anniversary Nancy and I took a Cunard Lines "Mexican Riviera" cruise. The ship was an old North Atlantic liner that actually looked like an ocean liner and had a large passenger foredeck above the working deck. I took my sextant and navigation kit. Before we left Long Beach I dropped a fishing line over the side to determine how high about the waterline I'd be and then on the first day out went to the deck around noon local time to get a noon shot. I was busy with the sextant and stopwatch when I heard someone with an Italian accent calling me. I looked up and on the bridge a uniformed officer was yelling and gesturing. I thought he was telling me to get off the deck - it was a little rough and the ship occasionally took some spray over the bow. But, no, he was calling me up to the bridge.
When I arrived, the captain and officers were interested that I'd given up the casino, the show, the shopping mall, and 6 or 7 restaurants to spend my lunchtime taking a sun shot. Turned out I was only about 12 miles off. For the rest of the cruise I had an invite to the bridge, got to know the Italian officers, and enjoyed an experience I thought I wouldn't since I don't gamble, drink, or buy stuff. The climbing wall didn't interest me, either.
However, I never won the daily "how far have we sailed" contest, even though I spent each noontime waiting for the sun to peak.
Great story, Pat. I thought you were going to say that they were asking you for help navigating!
Zombies aside, a simple, fun way to learn celestial is getting hold of John Milligan's
Celestial Navigation by H.O.249 (Paperback), available for cheap via Amazon or downloadable for free.
In his book, you join Milligan on his boat for a passage to Hawaii using celestial navigation. Milligan takes you through the tools, vocabulary, and techniques. If you can read, add, and subtract, you can learn celestial on your own using the simplified HO 249 tables. Recommended.
Flying back from Hawaii, the airlines used to give a bottle of champagne to the passenger who could guess the closest to halfway time. I won that once, until they discovered I wasn't old enough to receive the prize.
Last edited by sleddog; 10-18-2016 at 08:13 PM.