The sextant

There are talks of removing the celestial navigation parts in the education for people like me. I’m glad I learned it before they did. Here’s a short description of how it’s done.
Step 1. Try to collect yourself and have a coke or something. It’s going to take a while and you know you’ll feel older after.
Step 2. Take out the sextant and blow away the dust. 
Step 3. Go outside and measure the angle between the horizon and the lower limb of the moon. At the exact second you feel good about the angle, click start on the stopwatch. This gives you time to go inside and write down the log. The correct time is very important.
Step 4. Repeat step 3 after an hour.
Step 5. Repeat step 3 after another hour. 
Step 6. Do the exact same thing except instead of the moon, use a star. I chose Vega, because it was visible and in a good angle. The problem here is I don’t know any stars so I had to use a star finder. And in order to know what star you’re finding, you have to know your position. So I cheated there. You gotta problem with that?
Step 7. Step 7 is a real pisser. It involves math, looking up stuff in tables, scratching your head a lot. There’s a lot of writing erroneous stuff on papers, erasing all of it, and then writing correctly. Cursing is also essential.
Step 8. Step 7 gives you a bunch of LOPs, Line Of Position, and if you transport them along the course line they should cross in the same position. Your position. Compare with the GPS and you know your accuracy. My first moon angle and the star was really good. Maybe 2 nautical miles from the correct position. The other moons where maybe 8nm away. Still pretty good, I think.
Step 9. Step 9 is all about feeling good about yourself. Savor it, because it will only last until… 
Step 10. …where you realize Step 7 thru 9 took 2 days to figure out because your brain has turned into moosh after 14 weeks at sea. Which means you have very accurately pinpointed the position in the Mediterranean 2 days ago. After which you’ve passed Gibraltar and are halfway up the Portugal coast already. So yeah, it was a completely useless. But still pretty sweet. I dunno, I have mixed emotions about the whole thing.

Now the exotic parts of the journey is over. We’re on our way to Antwerp. “Antwerp”! It sounds like some kind of cruel animal trapping device. “Yes zeh teddy is trapped in ze antwerp by zhees razorblades and is zhen zloooowly strangulated wihzz piano wire for minimum damage to zhe furr”. Anyway it’s going to be tough up there. It’s Antwerp – Ghent – Zeebrugge, all within spitting distance of each other. We’ll be up day and night going thru locks, mooring and discharging. And if you followed my blog you already know that these ports are the worst ports in the world!

Finally, I wish to recommend the movie “Hamlet 2” starring Steve Coogan. It starts real mellow like, but the show at the end is deeply, deeply funny. There is also brief nudity although not the good kind.