The natural Navigation: The Right Course, Naturally

Each part of the world has its unique natural navigational heritage with distinct differences, making each appear totally foreign to the other on first meeting.

What could the Pacific Islanders possibly share with the Bedouin? Or the Vikings with someone going for a walk in an English wood? All these navigators share views of the sun, moon and stars, but all will also have a relationship with the wind. The wind sculpts the land and sea all over the world, it leaves its marks wherever we care to look for them. The swell of the oceans, the shape of the dunes and the curve of the exposed trees all betray their intimate relationship with the wind.

Here are some small sand sculptures that I photographed among the dunes on West Wittering beach a few weeks ago. The swell of the Pacific and the dunes of the Sahara are not…

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Congratulations to Sam LLewellyn on the launch of The Marine Quarterly.  A more handsome nautical vessel would be hard to find. (The Marine Quarterly that is.)

It would be considered poor form for me to comment at length on the quality of the content, since the launch issue includes a piece by me, ‘Stars and Waves’ on the subject of traditional Pacific navigation techniques. Suffice to say, the whole is beautiful and fascinating.

I suspect that the nautical community will soon be divided into two groups, those that know of the MQ and those that do not.

For more information or to subscribe (it is subscription only) visit The Marine Quarterly.

One of the parts of the Beginner’s Guide course that is always popular, no doubt because it is a break from listening to me bang on, is when I show a short excerpt from the film, The Navigators. In this excellent 1982 Sam Low documentary about indigenous Pacific navigation methods, we get to see  scenes where master navigator Mau Pialug instructs new recruits on the small island of Satawal in navigating at night with a star compass. Following this it gets a bit emotional as we witness the climax of Mau’s 2500 voyage from Hawaii to Tahiti, without any instruments.

It is a rare gem of a film and took me a little while to track down. In the end I had to email Sam Low himself, he was very helpful and pointed me towards this small distribution company. Please mention me if you order a copy, as…

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