As I write, I’m on my way back to Tarka to resume work. I’ve been away this past week studying celestial navigation, ocean passage planning and meteorology as part of the RYA Yachtmaster Ocean theory course.
When offshore I plan to use celestial navigation as one of my primary methods of navigation (alongside a more manual approach to coastal work), supported by a backup gps fix from the radio/personal locator beacon. When one calculates their estimated position from landmarks ashore and in the sky they become intimately aware of what’s going on around them – infinitely more so than blindly following the chart plotter (not to say it’s always one attitude or the other). Similarly one often finds oneself blindly following the satnav in the car and having absolutely no idea how we got there or how to get back to where we departed from – without once again following the screen. I find this approach prudent given that a comprehensive understanding of your surroundings is vital in an emergency situation, and gives a much richer and more fulfilling experience.
In other news, the bunk fronts are cleated and bonded in, and the bunk dividers are cut out.
From today I will be bonding the dividers in, cutting and bonding-in the rest of the v-berth structure, cleating for the bunk tops, and then cutting the tops out.
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