A Smorgasbord of Clouds

Tonight's early evening sky is a feast of cloud types. Cumulus, passing low and darkened by the shade, perhaps the last of the fair-weather clouds for a bit. Higher there is cirrus, cirrostratus and altostratus all heralding the approaching warm front. Thrown in for a bonus there are some contrails from aircraft heading to and from the continent.

Shadow Seeker

For the next six months the sun will always have some south in it when viewed from Britain. It will rise south of east and set south of west until the 20th March 2009. Its shadows must therefore always have some north in them. This picture was taken at 9.35 this morning, by which time the sun is fast approaching south-east and my shadow is well on its way to north-west.

Random fact for the day: sun compasses were still being issued to the military for the first Gulf war in 1991.

Lunar Lancaster

A Lancaster uses the moon to navigate at Goodwood Revival last weekend. Maybe not, but nice shot by Ben Davis.

Coconuts Navigation

'Sagur, a spirit and chief, lived on the island of Pulap with his daughter, Inosagur. As she bathed in the lagoon before the canoe house one morning, she beheld a rainbow. It became a spirit, Anumwerici, which came to her. The spirit had eaten all the inhabitants of Truk and Naminuoito; now he intended to eat the people of Pulap, too.

But Sagur told his daughter to fetch a little piece of taro and a small drinking coconut. Although Anumwerici complained this would not be enough, each time he tipped the cup containing the taro to his mouth it was refilled. the same thing happened with the drinking coconut. Anumwerici ate and drank his fill. Never, he said, had he been so satisfied.

In gratitude he taught Inosagur navigation. He placed her in a small coconut tree and by magic made it grow above the clouds. Inosagur could see all the islands, all the creatures of pookof, and all the reefs, banks, and shoals...'

From 'The Last Navigator', by Stephen Thomas.

Za Mooon

My youngest son has added the word 'moon' to his vocabulary of about 7 words. It came as a bit of a surprise as I was in the kitchen early this morning when this strange sound, 'za mooon', kept coming out of his mouth. He took my hand, led me to the back door and then pointed up at the object in this photo, neatly solving the mystery of what 'za mooon' could possibly mean. Does this mean I might be bringing my work home with me too much?

Equinox - lovely word.

At 15.44 (GMT) this afternoon the sun crosses the celestial equator. It is the autumnal equinox. What on earth has that got to do with the price of toast, I hear you ask. Well amongst other things it means that today is one of only two days this year that the sun rises and sets due east and west.

Equinox, mmm, equinox, lovely word. Did you know that it comes from the Latin words for 'equal' and 'night', because on the equinoxes everywhere in the world experiences the same amount of day and night-time?

Big Boats and Little Boats

Last night I was fortunate enough to be invited aboard HMS Warrior to give the after dinner speech to the Contessa 32 Association End of Season Rally. It was a fun evening that had at its heart some the best British maritime traditions. HMS Warrior was an extraordinary feat of engineering and, ironically, peacemaking. At the other end of the scale the Contessa 32 is steadily going about securing its own small place in our nautical heritage also.

Nice little mention in the Guardian today.

Everlasting Summer

The forecast for this weekend seems intent on lulling us into believing that the summer has life in it yet, after weeks on the resuscitation table.

If we're in the mood for deluding ourselves that there is more of this come, then the 'Summer Triangle' is worth looking out for. It is a collection of three bright stars that are overhead near midnight in midsummer, but still clearly visible well through autumn and even into the early evening winter sky. It is not a constellation at all, but a nickname for the three brightest stars, Vega, Deneb and Altair, from three different constellations, Lyra, Cygnus and Aquila.

So, as the nights draw in and you find yourself shivering looking up, search out the 'Summer' triangle to warm you.

Heat, Wind and Chillies

When talking about heat and wind in the context of chillies, there is a risk that we might start to think some very un-navigational thoughts...

... however, this is a risky business, so here are two jalapeno chillies. One lived its life in a south-facing greenhouse, the other lived near it, outside near a south-facing wall. They both received identical amounts of sunlight. They both grew in the same soil and received plenty of water. The only serious differences to their environments were the temperature and wind exposure.

It is not too hard to see that nature is quite fussy about its environment and it is this fussiness that can give us a helping hand. It is sometimes possible to deduce useful things about the elements from two examples of the same species. One big example of this can sometimes be found in the different look and feel of two sides of the same hill or mountain.

Dawn Today

The Natural Navigator's day often starts with a quick check that the sun is rising roughly where it should be - blog readers will be the first to know if it doesn't! As this picture shows it is not always a chore and the time that our youngest is getting up each morning certainly helps make sure I'm ready.

This will be the last week this year when the sun rises north of east and its change as it heads south each morning (and evening) is at its fastest at this time of year.

Two Beaches for the Price of One

There is something surreal, perhaps postmodern?, about blogging about a newspaper that is writing about you. Ian Belcher reviewed my course in the Sunday Times Travel section today, you can read it here, but then you might be reading this because you've already read his piece... such are the conundrums of modern life...

Back to reality. I am sometimes struck by how different it can feel walking in different directions along the same beach. Often this is because the wind goes from being on your back to being on your face, but there can be more solid reasons. At Climping where I was this morning the shingle is moved gradually and relentlessly eastwards by the waves. This forces it up against the groynes and means that if you walk east you are faced by gentle hills and sharp drops down, but when you turn around you walk down gentle down slopes and are faced with steep rises. In the legs it feels like a different beach altogether.

Latitude Lice

Last night I spent a few minutes re-reading a couple of passages from Barry Cunliffe's book about Pytheas the Greek. About 2300 years ago Pytheas went seriously far north for a Mediterranean, but the debate still rages about how far he went. Some of it seems to revolve around an expression about there being enough light to 'pick the lice from your shirt' at midnight. Now that's what I call natural.

Smoke and Sun

This is a picture I took about half an hour ago and it is one of those that might be dismissed by those not trained in the dark arts as a 'typical English country scene'. With closer inspection it yields navigational fruit aplenty.

The foreground shadow confirms that the sun is no longer visible from this viewpoint, but the direction of the early evening sun is easy to detect from the long shadows in the middle ground. We are therefore looking south.

The smoke from the two fires reveals that the wind is light and variable. In the space of little more than a hundred metres it goes from next to nothing to a light north-easterly breeze.

In the top left of the picture, just above the tree line the south coast sea can just be seen. It is running from left to right, or an east-west line, which is sort of what we have come to expect from the southern central English coast.

The sheep don't seem to have aligned themselves in any useful way, which considering the effort that the rest of the scene is going to is not very cooperative of them. They could learn a lot from their fellow grazers, the cows that have been posing for Google recently.

The River

We spent some fun family time by the river Thames yesterday.We were in suburbia at Datchet, near Windsor. The recent heavy rains did mean that the water was fast running, but it was not a scene of fear and danger, more the scene of an enormous barbecue. Even so, I don't think I can spend time near a river without recalling the extraordinary navigator, Harold Gatty, and the line:

'In nine cases out of ten rivers will lead, if not home, at least to somebody else's home.'

E-brochure

The Natural Navigator E-brochure can now be downloaded from here or the links page.

Bovine Headlines

Navigation may fill my working hours, but even I couldn't pretend that it is a high profile topic. Last week however a story about cows pointing north and south started appearing everywhere, there is a good summary on the BBC website.
On Saturday the Times newspaper ran a main news story and editorial piece describing how GPS navigators are not getting the full experience and are being denied the benefit of the rich detail of traditional maps. They put it well, 'Turn left on to the A303 for Andover, ignoring the ancient stones: those without a map may not know they are passing Stonehenge.'
Perhaps this mini-surge of interest is why they were kind enough to run a snippet about my courses too.

An Old Friend

Bit of an early start this morning for a busy day in London, but there was consolation in a constellation. Forgive me.

I saw Orion for the first time in months and Sirius was just visible above the dawn sun. It gave me a warm fuzzy feeling even though I was shivering in bare feet on cold stone. There were plenty of times mid-Atlantic when the boat was rocking in the big swell and Orion was the friend I used to steady my tired eyes on the night sky. Welcome back, hunter.