Finding the way home
Our visitors had spent the afternoon exploring the local area and they wanted to know more about that big white building down at the end of the road. The one with the big light on top. And so I took time to explain the basics of what lighthouse did back in the days when they were really important. Speaking as a bystander because I’ve never owned a boat. And of course we And of course we move to the next chapter in my life experience what did you do when you were out of sight of the lighthouse. Out on the ocean. I had an answer for that as well because as a boy I read far too much about things that we have not much interest. I understood that with the right time and training and equipment you could look at the sky and get a pretty good idea about where you might be. Again speaking as a bystander because I had never actually done this in real life. Things are much easier now with equipment that allows you to use satellites for navigation but until the last century someone going to see needed to be able to find where they were. You would take the time to look at the sky look at the stars check the clock and come up with an approximation of where you were on the earth surface that was good for a few minutes. If you did this often enough you could then decide that you were heading in a general direction. All necessary all quite practical and quickly becoming lossed skills. I have never actually met a young person that knew how to navigate by the stars. Other than spotting the north star and deciding that the Big Dipper was nearby. Fun but not enough to get you back home. I think that the GPS is a wonderful invention. A chance for people to go beyond sight of land and then find their way back. Even in the fog. Our discussion it also turned to fog alarms that’s a story for another day.
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