My Sextant

One of the joys of sailing is the ability to keep alive the skills of ancient mariners, at my age I think I also qualify as ancient.

As a youngster I always struggled with astronavigation.  The textbooks were 'as dry as dust' and were written by mathematician for mathematicians, not engineers like me. 

The subject came up one evening after a long sail when we were snuggly tied up in Falmouth and the skipper summed up the process in five minutes then recommended a book on the subject that explained in simple terms what you need to do to get a position on the planet from the sun and the stars.  

I've loved learning the stuff and get quite a thrill when I pick up a sextant and work out roughly where we are.