Two Harbors New Moorings Reservation System

[paul culver]

Ah yes, the Davis Mark 3 plastic sextant. I bought one when I was idled during the recession of Bush the Elder and spent many memorable moments at the beach learning how to use it. One time a woman came up to me while I was taking sun sights and asked "is everything OK?". I figured she thought a guy with a notebook, stop watch and sextant would know if the end of the world was near, so I reassured her that everything was indeed OK. Then on the other hand, maybe she just thought I had lost it. By the way, the sextant also works great for watching a solar eclipse and shooting vertical angles of on-shore features to determine distance off. Too bad GPS wrecked it all!

Paul
E29 "Bear"

 

[AleksT]

Still good things to know

Too bad GPS wrecked it all!

Paul
E29 "Bear"[/QUOTE]

Met someone who worked on design of inertial guidance systems for the Patriot missile systems back when GPS was in its infancy. They asked the military why the system had to be so accurate since you could get great positional data from these new satellites.
The answer was that all it takes is a few rocks shot into the sky to bring the system down.
Don't get rusty on your sextant skills if you are traveling long distances.