The lines that caught my attention were. predictably, when she asked her savvy guides about their navigation skills.

“How do you know you’re heading anywhere?” I asked.

“You get to know clues. The path down a wadi is never straight down; it usually follows a contour to the head of the valley and around. Omanis don’t like going up or down if they can avoid it. Donkey poo is also a pretty good sign you’re on a path.”

Contained in this there is a pretty good general rule. If it is a tough choice between heading down or holding a contour, go for the latter. Either could be a wrong choice, but holding your height will normally leave you with more options, more energy and a better perspective.

They were also kind enough to let me quiz them about their methods of navigation. As you might suspect, the sun, moon and stars don’t play a big part, but they do have some fantastic kit. The Tamar class of lifeboat that we went out on is a formidable boat and the crew’s eyes really light up when you get them on the subject of how good the boat is at righting itself from being upside down.

The only major navigational surprise for me was that they don’t currently use AIS (Automatic Identification System). Warming to know that they do still carry paper charts and mark their position every quarter of an hour with a low-tech pencil.

It was only a Force 5 or 6 out there today, but as this photo might show it was enough to give food for thought… What they must go through on their really bad days at the ‘office’. One crew member, Phil, was out in the great storm of ’87. ******* ****!

Those who have read my last blog entry might be wondering what I took this picture with. The answer is my wife’s camera. I haven’t got round to telling her that the wave after this one soaked her camera. The one after that got under my oilskins and trickled down my back. Felt wonderful to give the face a good soaking in brine again!

What, no sextant?

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We are happy to offer you and your customers 20% OFF the price of the book, RRP £18.99. To obtain this, visit www.roughguides.com and enter ROUGH at the check out.’

So there you go, a 20% discount for all natural navigators. Although I noticed it is not as much of a discount as you get if you buy it from Amazon. Wait a mintue, maybe this is just an ingenious marketing technique, getting all 500 of us listed in the book to spread the word about the book amongst our ‘networks’? Oh well, not many flies on me, I won’t be drawn into that little game… Doh!

Tristan

Many thanks for a fantastic day yesterday.

I learnt so much and was stimulated also by the opportunity to apply what I did know to a new “problem solving” challenge! I checked out the moon last night and located Polaris and was quite comfortable that it was NOT directly above my head as I always imagined it might be! (I do need to re-set the weathervane and I think I’ll use Polaris to do this!)

The principles you taught will add another layer to my enjoyment and connection with the great outdoors. So rather than just walking through it and looking at the views I’ll be able to read more off it. Natural Navigation is a key to unlocking a fascinating text in the Earth’s rich library.

Thanks again for a very inspiring day – just off to check the lichen and moss on the trees in the garden!

Richard W (Cambridge)

The film is about Mau Pialug, one of a very small number of Pacific Islanders still skilled in using traditional Pacific navigation methods. He explains his use of the stars and swell and demonstrates the methods using rocks on the beach, before embarking on an epic voyage without using instruments.

Mau Pialug went on to play an important role in the founding of the Polynesian Voyaging Society, a non-profit organisation dedicated to preserving the traditional navigation methods.

I was delighted this morning to find an email from my sister-in-law drawing my attention to this wonderful poem, Ithaca. It was written by the Greek poet, Constantine P. Cavafy, one hundred years ago. It is weighs in heavily on the side of enjoying a journey, which is quite ironic given that it is inspired by The Odyssey, an epic poem about a man who was trying desperately to bring his journey to a close.

(I don’ t think I’ll tell my brother that his wife has sent me poetry, I’ll wait for a Christmas lunch together before doing that!)

Ithaca

When you set out on your journey to Ithaca,
pray that the road is long,
full of adventure, full of knowledge.
The Lestrygonians and the Cyclops,
the angry Poseidon — do not fear them:
You will never find such as these on your path,
if your thoughts remain lofty, if a fine
emotion touches your spirit and your body.
The Lestrygonians and the Cyclops,
the fierce Poseidon you will never encounter,
if you do not carry them within your soul,
if your soul does not set them up before you.

Pray that the road is long.
That the summer mornings are many, when,
with such pleasure, with such joy
you will enter ports seen for the first time;
stop at Phoenician markets,
and purchase fine merchandise,
mother-of-pearl and coral, amber and ebony,
and sensual perfumes of all kinds,
as many sensual perfumes as you can;
visit many Egyptian cities,
to learn and learn from scholars.

Always keep Ithaca in your mind.
To arrive there is your ultimate goal.
But do not hurry the voyage at all.
It is better to let it last for many years;
and to anchor at the island when you are old,
rich with all you have gained on the way,
not expecting that Ithaca will offer you riches.

Ithaca has given you the beautiful voyage.
Without her you would have never set out on the road.
She has nothing more to give you.

And if you find her poor, Ithaca has not deceived you.
Wise as you have become, with so much experience,
you must already have understood what Ithacas mean.

by C. P. Cavafy (1911)

This reminded me of my trip to the Sahara last month. All signs of life in a desert are interesting at some level, usually including some navigation clues. Flies were no exception. They were not a big problem, and we could go for several hours without noticing them, but then they would appear in a swarm business (I just Googled the collective noun for flies and apparently it is either ‘swarm’ or ‘business’. I love the latter.)

Sometimes their appearance was easy to understand, if we were closing in on an oasis or wadi with some vegetation. These were hardly sprawling conurbations, but relative to their surroundings they were busy places. At other times it would be harder, they would just appear in the middle of a vast desolate, dusty, dry plain. Like all nature, flies can’t have much time for wasted effort, so I am sure that their numbers was significant of something, but exactly what I didn’t always work out. In all these situations I tend to take the view that the answer was probably there, under my nose (or even buzzing its way up it), I just failed to spot it.

This photo shows my Tuareg friend, Amgar, walking in front of me as we entered Wadi Meggedet. Although still in the middle of nowhere, it is just on the tourist map. We met a 4×4 full of Libyans, our first sight of other people in ten days. The flies, understandably, had decided to do a lot of business in this place and you might be able to spot a few on Amgar’s back. I hadn’t washed at all for a fortnight at this point, so there may have been a couple on my back too.

No visible sun, no discernible wind, these are the conditions that remind us that the trees reflect their environment over a long period. They act as a giant USB stick of data about thousands of days of sun and wind. All we need to do is tune our senses and look for it. The thin branch in the bottom left of the picture has been curved upwards by the prevailing southwest winds over time.

Misha Myers, who had kindly invited me down to teach, explained that the college is going through something of a transitory period. It is a wonderful place and I do hope it has a bright future. The students that I met seem to have the energy to help with that, although I’m not sure if that was drawn from the inspirational surroundings or their apparently bottomless supply of Red Bull.

We spent most of the time walking outside, looking for the usual suspects of sun, shadows, tree shape, moss and lichen growth, tree trunks, mud colour…

Our three hours together finished in my favourite way. I was able to tell a group who had no previous navigation experience that they were now amongst the top 1% of natural navigators in the UK.

‘Investment bank Goldman Sachs has voiced the concern that 2009 could usher in several years of decline in the portable navigation device market. It made the comment while moving stocks in Garmin, one of the leading satnav manufacturers, to its ‘conviction sell’ list.’

I was mistaken. Unfortunately the reason it gave was not that everyone was switching to ‘NatNav’, but that smartphones were increasingly being fitted with navigation functions. Perhaps as this trend kicks in we can look forward to the sight of fat lorries wedged in narrow country lanes and people wedged inbetween trees too!