The natural Navigation: The Right Course, Naturally

We are bearing down on stargazing-season. It is getting dark early enough in the evenings, staying dark long enough in the mornings and doesn’t yet freeze you for the privilege.

This morning I enjoyed a view of Orion, Sirius, Leo, which has just marched ahead of the dawn sun now, and a few other players. I took this photo of Orion’s Sword hanging down to the left (eastern) side of a large beech tree and dangling down towards the south, as it does. The ‘smudge’ in the middle is the Great Nebula in Orion, also known less romantically as ‘M42′. It is a ‘stellar nursery’ where new stars are born. Would a more appropriate term not be a ‘stellar maternity ward’?

On a different subject, my best wishes and good luck to Kevin Shannon who is attempting a zero-emissions circumnavigation of the globe. He asked me for my thoughts,…

Read More...

I watched the History Channel’s ‘Expedition: Africa’ last night, a retake on Stanley’s expedition to find Livingstone. It is quite enjoyable if a bit ‘light’, the interest certainly coming from the internal politics of the expedition team rather than the nature of the journey itself. One thing did strike me, one of their challenges is billed as ‘using only compasses and basic maps’, which could only be billed as a challenge in the age of satellite navigation. Even this seemed to rob the team of some of their awareness of their surroundings. Pasquale Scaturro, the navigator, takes a compass bearing and then navigates from ‘tree to tree’ despite numerous clues in the sky and ground to help him hold a course. To be fair Benedict Allen does point out that the river would give a line to follow, but Pasquale does not seem to want the river to get between…

Read More...

I had an enjoyable and full day yesterday holding a Beginner’s Guide to Natural Navigation course at the Royal Geographical Society in Kensington. We were in the Lowther room for the day, one of the many rooms at the RGS that oozes character and a sense of history. Even when stepping into the room for the first time, a lot of people experience a feeling of familiarity as it has appeared in many films.

There was a great group for the course from very diverse backgrounds, from the art world to the military. Some of us were busy chatting over a cup of tea, about the room and the sort of figures from history that would have shared the same space, Shackleton and Co, when Sir Ranulph Fiennes passed us in the corridor.

It was one of those serendipitous moments that does no harm to the romantic mystique…

Read More...