Gene Grossman - Celestial Navigation for the Complete Idiot: A Simple Explanation

Celestial Navigation for the Complete Idiot

A Simple Explanation

By Gene Grossman

Author of the popular 15

Peter Sharp Legal Mysteries

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ISBN: 9781452306247

http:// www.CelestialNavigation.com

MMIX Gene Grossman

Edition 2.1 June, 2010

All rights reserved

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CONTENTS

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NOTES FROM THE EDITOR
CLAVIN NOTES:

Quite often you will note a parenthetical section of this book called aClavin Note. These notes have been named after the fictional character Cliff Clavin, featured for many years on the popular television series about the goings-on at a bar in Boston, namedCheers.

Cliff Clavin was a regular at Cheers, and was best known for his habit of bringing up trivial, irritating factual matter that the other bar patrons didnt care about but that Cliff always thought was relevant to whatever subject was being discussed at the time.

The editors at Magic Lamp Press have long viewed the author of this book as the Cliff Clavin of non-fiction, so they have decided to separate out some of the facts contained herein as Clavin Notes, and labeled them as so, for a caution to the unsuspecting readers

We are also pleased to announce that this book was awarded a 2011 Global eBook Award in the non-fiction category, and we would like to thank the judges for this honor.

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INTRODUCTION

Some time ago I signed on as crew with a friend of mine named Ron Curry, who was delivering a Force 50 Taiwan ketch from California to a charter company on one of those tropical islands down past Florida. The trip would require going through the Panama Canal, and because I had a month or so to kill between trials (I was still an active lawyer in those days), I decided to go along for the ride.

On that first evening when we pulled out of Marina del Rey, a brief conversation between Rona and I took place, during which I asked him a simple question. Ron, whos the navigator on this trip.

His answer didnt surprise me at first. I am, Gene. But, when I thought about it for a second or two and took into consideration that the boats only electronics were a VHF radio, with nothing in the navigation department, I had to ask.

Oh, really? When did you learn celestial navigation?

He quite calmly answered: I didnt.

At this point I thought it might be nice to point something out to him about the trip wed just embarked on. You know, from here down to Cabo San Lucas, all you have to do is keep land on your left and youll be okay and then its a couple of hundred miles across the Sea of Cortez to the Mexican mainland where well probably pull into Mazatlan or Puerto Vallarta - but sooner or later well be going through the ditch [nickname for the Panama Canal]. Well be out of sight of land for quite a while, and without celestial or any navigational electronics on board, we may have a slight problem.

When he answered, I found out the method to his uninformed madness: Not to worry, Gene, by the time we get to Cabo, Ill know all the celestial navigation Ill ever need.

How are you going to do that Ron?

Youre going to teach me.

Im a pretty hard person to surprise, but I have to admit that he caught me with that remark, and felt that a confession was in order: Ron, I dont know how to tell you this, but I dont know anything about celestial navigation. Im a lawyer and I have a sailboat, but my idea of using a sextant is to peer through the lens to look at the read-out on my GPS unit.

His answer was a pleasant surprise, in that he obviously had more respect for my brain power than I realized in fact he had more confidence in it than I did.

Thats okay Gene, Ive got several books on it on board, and I know you went to college, so you can learn it and teach me. Well be stopping at Catalina Island for a few days, and then in San Diego for about a week, and well probably be hanging out down in Cabo [Cabo San Lucas, at the bottom tip of Baja] for at least a week or two, so youll have about a month to learn all about it and give me some lessons before we make our first crossing on our way to Puerto Vallarta. And if itll be any help, youre excused from watch duty. There are seven of us on board, so all youll have to do is study for the next couple of weeks.

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Well, I dont think I have to tell you that I immediately turned into a student, but that wasnt too bad, because it was a nice situation: a delightful downhill cruise on a 50foot sailing yacht, with nothing to do but read about a popular and interesting boating subject.

I really enjoyed getting into the subject, but was disappointed in the instructions in Rons books - so much so, that after making our layover stops at Catalina, San Diego, and Ensenada, I bought every book on the subject I could find, and by the time we anchored in the outer bay at Cabo San Luca, I was having fun giving celestial navigation lectures on the beach to other boaters.

Ron also picked up the subject quite nicely which was a good thing, because when checking in with my office, I learned that Id have to jump ship and return to L.A. for a re-scheduled jury trial. After two days in Puerto Vallarta, I flew back to California, feeling secure that Ron would be able to bring the boat to its destination and he ultimately did.

Coincidentally, a few years later, a motion picture named Captain Ron was released starring Kurt Russell and Martin Short, about a family hiring a guy named Ron (Russell) to help them sail their boat one identical to the one captained by Ron Curry on our trip south.

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In addition to practicing law back then, I also owned a small equipment rental company that serviced low-budget film productions, so in response to many of my boating friends, and my own personal difficulties in trying to learn this subject strictly from the books that were available, I wrote, produced, and starred in my first video production: Celestial Navigation: Sextant Use and the Sun Noon Shot. At that time, it was the first professionally produced nautical video on that subject in the country, and after being advertised in all of the national boating magazines [there was no Internet for folks like us back in those days before 1990], it became quite popular and started a series of more than 50 nautical titles that we produced over the following years.

At the time, I was living aboard my Columbia 50 sloop in Marina del Rey California, and wanted to show off my new video to several dock neighbors. These guys in the 60 foot slips were not just your average boat bums: keeping a big boat looking nice, in a big slip, in a classy marina, is not an inexpensive thing to do, so our dock was occupied by persons of a higher than average socio-economic level doctors, cops, robbers, celebs, etc., etc most of which had also had a higher-than-average or advanced college education.

[Clavin Note: Johnny Carsons huge yacht Serengeti was parked across from ours]

To my surprise, when showing the video box (that was before DVDs) to one of my neighbors, a well respected heart surgeon, his response was much like the ones from other neighbors: he shrunk back like a vampire being scared by someone waving a cross, blurting out, Oh no, thats not for me Im an idiot when it comes to stuff like celestial navigation!