Finding Land with Help from the Birds
“It was our first and only experience in 50 years of cruising of navigating by gannet!” My thanks to Christopher for this lovely email and…
Tag: navigation
Constant Bearing, Constant Danger
What does “constant bearing, constant danger” mean? And why does it sometimes lead to a very dangerous problem? This expression is a neat abbreviation of…
Wayfinding with Rosebay Willowherb – Chamerion angustifolium
Rosebay willowherb (Chamerion angustifolium) is tall late-summer wildflower with distinctive pink-purple flowers that grow in tall spikes from July-September, with spirals of lance-like leaves. It…
Wild Signs in Taiwanese
Wild Signs & Star Paths (The Nature Instinct in the US) is now out in Taiwan.
The Colour and Shape of Navigation Marks
Most navigators, even inexperienced ones, learn that colours are important when trying to identify navigation marks at sea. And most people also know that there…
A Rumination on Navigation
My thanks to Zina Deretsky for this lovely poem: The Minotaur Sat Remember when our navigation Was instinct, stars and perspiration? The stars were bright…
Transit Lines
My favourite signs always combine simplicity, elegance and practicality. They are often so effective that technology can’t improve on them. Cats’ Paws, the ruffled patterns…
Adventure Sports Podcast
I recently did a podcast interview with Mason Gravley of the Adventure Sports Podcast in the US. (Interview begins about 5.40 mins in.) There are…
What is a Great Circle?
When I first learned about great circles, I found them to be one of the most eye-opening, head-scratching and strangely beautiful concepts in navigation. I…
The Truth About Moss
Moss is probably the best known natural navigation indicator in the world. It is also excellent at demonstrating how easy it is to go wrong…
The Shapes of Trees and a Sense of Place
Tree shapes are dictated by the needs of the tree and reflect the places we find them. There are dozens of methods for using trees…
Architecture and Navigation
Wherever you are in the world, there are some simple principles applied by architects and a few of these are relevant to natural navigators. It…
A Unique Sense of Place
Navigation is about knowing where you are as much as working out how to get to where you want to be. A lot of the…
Mountainous Oman
There is a good piece in yesterday’s Telegraph travel section, by Kate Humble, encouraging those who visit Oman to step out of the resort and…
RNLI Navigation
My thanks to the RNLI, who gave me the opportunity of going to sea with them this afternoon. They were also kind enough to let…
Clean Breaks
I have just received an email telling me that I have been ‘specially recommended in Rough Guides’ new book – Clean Breaks: 500 New Ways…
The Earth’s Rich Library
This just in… Tristan Many thanks for a fantastic day yesterday. I learnt so much and was stimulated also by the opportunity to apply what…
Flies and Civilisation
There is a fly buzzing around me at the moment that is seriously dopey, it seems to me that its best days might be behind…
Fog Navigation
This morning brought with it a nice thick radiation fog, which the sun will probably burn off soon. There is not forecast to be much…