Out of the fog and into the future

Paul Jones, a dab hand with a sextant, was reluctant to get to grips with electronic navigation-but now he teaches both methods!

- Paul Jones

Sailing the diminutive Cal 20 in a fog bank past the Golden Gate, we started to feel the boat rise. Using eyeball navigation, we had tacked into the ground swell of the notorious Four Fathom Bank. Like some sort of giant, it lifted the hull and suddenly the little sailboat seemed very small to the three of us who had ventured out for the first time into the Pacific Ocean.

Four Fathom, known locally as the 'potato patch shoal' for its proclivity of rolling ships in the bygone era to the point of dumping potatoes from baskets out through the scuppers, was merciful that day. Ignorant of its dangers and unaware of where we were exactly, we rode the aquatic rollercoasters for a few minutes, then swung the boat east and went wing-on-wing back into the bay. We were happy to make it home safely. The only navigation components on board were clip-on nav lights powered by D-cell batteries. A backup kerosene lamp was stowed somewhere below. That was 1970.

After an elementary course in boating safety offered by the US Coast Guard Auxiliary, I decided to take a celestial navigation class. It wasn't a logical progression, but it matched my naive aspirations. Our instructor, a master mariner with decades of experience, passed on a lot of valuable advice, not a lick of it based on electronics. He imparted in me a lifelong love of celestial navigation. I started teaching it close to 30 years ago-right when modern electronic navigation was coming to the fore. And I still love teaching it.

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