The natural Navigation: The Right Course, Naturally

As promised, here is a more detailed update on my short time in Oman last week. My main reason for being there was to train the Omani Outward Bound instructors. In the short time available I wanted to give them a decent understanding of how to use nature’s clues to find their way in the desert. Just as importantly, I needed to give them the techniques and knowledge they could pass onto their future students.

We started with theory indoors at the offices of Outward Bound Oman, with the help of planetarium software and makeshift whiteboards (paper Sellotaped to a cupboard). After three hours of theory, it was time to head out in 4x4s for a 3 hour drive into the desert, for some more practical training.

We tracked the sun down to the horizon and confirmed that it had indeed set a good 15 degrees south of west.…

Read More...

Thank you to everyone who came to the course at the Royal Geographical Society on Friday. Also to those who came to the talk and walk on Saturday and to Rohan for organising and sponsoring the event.

I have just returned from a wonderful two days in the desert in Oman, where I have been teaching a group of Outward Bound Oman instructors some techniques for them to pass on to their students. In the picture above we are marking out the shadows from a stick in the sand.

We also looked at the clues in the dunes, the trees and smaller plants, the weather, the stars, moon and planets and many other things which I will be revisiting here on the blog when the desert dust falls off my rucksack and settles a bit.

One of the many highlights of the short trip was a chance…

Read More...

My thanks to Mark Evans who not only flew over from Oman for a course, but also sent me this great time lapse photo from Oman.

Mark is the General Manager of Outward Bound Oman, which does not sound like the worst job in the world to me! Outward Bound Oman, under Mark’s leadership, is teaching young Omanis many outdoor skills, including traditional methods of desert navigation.

Time for a bit of fun. Which way are we looking in this picture and why?

Answers by email please. I’ll post the correct answer in a couple of days.

Update.12/05/11.

We are looking just south of west. approx 255 degrees. Orion’s belt can be seen setting about one third the way in from the right. The arcing to the right is anticlockwise around the North Celestial Pole, to the left the stars are arcing clockwise around the South Celestial…

Read More...

A couple of weeks ago  I promised to write up the story of my afternoon with the Bedouin. The article can be found here.

One of the tricks of desert navigation is remembering that wind direction is never entirely random and over time is actually quite dependable. If we know the direction the wind normally blows from and we have ways of reading that direction from the land then we can get our bearings, even when there is no wind at all.

If you are interested in the relationships between wind, sand and desert then there is a good introduction on this page from the Earth Science Australia website. It includes explanations of the great-sounding parabolic, star and barchan dunes and the even better sounding ‘Yardangs’.