Traveling by Sextant Instead of GPS

Mistakes Will Be Made

Voyaging around the world, I loved the quiet of sailing at night through the inky black ocean. Night watch was mine, gazing at stars amid scant traffic in the middle of the sea. Every once in a while, on a cloudless night when the stars were really bright, I would take out a case that held the precious, delicate sextant to test my celestial navigation skills. I understood that finding our position by sextant was mostly vanity; a romantic throwback to the time before electronic chart plotters and GPS.

The sextant felt solid and important, its curves and shiny mirrors connecting me to the era of Captain Cook’s navigator. I always marveled that with numbers gathered from the sextant sighting, a nautical almanac and a clock, you could find out where you are in the world.

But it speaks volumes that I used a GPS to check my accuracy with the sextant. Despite lots of practice, the closest I ever came to our exact position was within 32 miles. There are lots of things that can go awry with that kind of error. So, where a sextant is lyrical, the GPS is freaking magic. Punch in where you are and where you want to go and abracadabra — you’re back on track.