Rod Green - The Dangerous Book for Men

If youre going to take yourself off on an adventure, there are a number of simple skills that you can practice beforehand. In the event that something on your trip then goes awry, you have a sound knowledge base to call upon. Whether you simply want to relive your Scouting days or plan to be a Special Forces commando, you can do no better than to be prepared. The following skills are ones that should serve you well no matter what sort of environment you are in.

To be lost is to be in danger. That is why any right-thinking gentleman will double-check his kit prejaunt to make sure he has packed all the maps that he might need and a compass to boot. But what if you do find yourself in the back of beyond without any of the basic tools to tell you where you are or which way to go? Well, all is not lost (even if you are) as you can use some old-fashioned initiative to find your bearings.

A wristwatch (analog, not digital)

The sun

This clever little strategy works because, while the sun rises in the east and sets in the west no matter where you are in the world, you can also use the sun to establish your north and south. If you happen to be in the northern hemisphere, at the strike of twelve the sun is due south. If you are in the southern hemisphere, it will be due north.

But your watch can serve as a compass at any daylight hour. If you are in the northern hemisphere, make sure your wristwatch is perfectly horizontal and target the hour hand at the sun. The point that lies halfway between twelve oclock and the hour hand is due south. If you repeat the same procedure south of the Equator, the midway point will be due north.

In the absence of an analog watch, simply draw a clock face on a piece of paper. Check the time from another source (say a digital watch or a mobile phone) and draw the hands onto your paper. Unless you are wonderfully skillful with a pencil, it wont be quite as accurate, but will do the job in an emergency.

An alternative way of creating your own compass requires you to get your hands on a sewing needle of an inch or two in length, a small magnet, a piece of cork (ideally from a wine bottle), and a small container (such as a glass) filled with water. Rub the needle with the magnet for a minute or so, always stroking the magnet in the same direction. When the needle is magnetized, push it through your cork so that about the same length of needle is exposed on either side. Float the cork-and-needle on the surface of the water in your container, which you will have placed on level ground. The needle will then search out the nearest pole, north or south, depending on where in the world you are, and point in that direction. Ingenious, although if you have all the necessary kit on hand, one might consider why you didnt pack a spare compass in your kit instead. Nor should you down a bottle of wine just to liberate a cork. Not only is it a waste but youll probably end up skewering your finger with the needle too.

If you have been sensible enough to pack an orienteering compass, well done! However, where once we could be sure that any male capable of tying his own shoelaces would also know how to use this most basic instrument, we can make no such assumptions today. You will obviously not wish to admit this in public but we shall have no secrets here. Heres how to do it.

Hold your compass flat. The needle will probably have one end painted red. After a few moments, this end of the needle will settle in one position, pointing to magnetic north. While keeping the compass flat, you can now twist the dial so the orienting mark for north is in line with the red end of the needle. All the other main compass points will now be automatically aligned. Make sure you are not in the vicinity of any large metal objects or magnets of any size, as these will affect the readings and guarantee that you get lost.

Should you lack the necessary apparatus for either of these above methods, you can still establish where north and south are using only what nature gives you (and a little bit of string).

A long, straight stick

Two pebbles of average size

A patch of level ground

A length of string

A twig

A few spare hours

Have you got all that? Its simple, really, but rather time-consuming, and no good if you want to get away in a hurry.

Man has used the stars to navigate for thousands of years. However, it is not an easy skill to learn (especially in an age when GPS has dulled our navigational senses still further) and it would take many years of study to commit all of the secrets of the stars to memory. However, you should be able to remember a few basic facts that might just save you one dark and stormy night

Remember, the passage of the Earth means that the sky can look very different from one night to another, with constellations seeming to change position. Nor should you expect to see the same thing in the Northern as in the Southern hemisphere. In fact youll need to adopt quite different strategies.

The key here is the North Star (also known as Polaris), one of the brightest stars in the sky and one that, thankfully, never seems to move. Its great use to us lies in the fact that it rests above the North Pole. In order to find it, you will need to identify the Big Dipper constellation.

Look at the diagram on the next page. It does not take a Galileo to tell you that, rather than a dipper, this looks much more like a frying pan with a giant handle. To locate Polaris, take the two stars that make up the pans far edge and follow the line up about six times the length that lies between them.

For an eastwest line, youll need Orion (or the Hunter). Again, this constellation is distinguished by its lack of similarity to any hunter youre ever likely to have seen. However, it does incorporate a line of three reasonably easy-to-spot stars that make up Orions Belt. This line will give you a rough east-west guideline, so it is worth learning how to find Orion.