Navigation

Last night Andy and I were speaking about navigation skills and I realised I had forgotten how to use a compass.  I asked Andy to run through the basics with me again.  So this morning we sat down with a map and I re-learned how to plot a route and then follow it when out walking.  Then when we went out for a walk we took a compass each and took some bearings from a couple of points.  When we got home we plotted the bearings for each point on the map to get an estimate of the location from where we took them.  We were reasonably accurate!  Later Andy showed me the oceanographic maps and tables he had used for calculating distances and directions when at sea - it was fascinating but very complicated with so many different factors to take into account - current speed and direction, tides and so on.  I am fascinated by the maps and calculations.