Hi All!
Proof that minds think similarly, a friend posted this on Facebook as I was in the midst of posting it here...
Bushcraft.UK has an interesting article on how to avoid getting lost when visiting strange cities:
http://www.bushcraftuk.com/forum/content.php?r=418-Six-ways-to-never-get-lost-in-a-city-againThere's some good tips in there for a person like me, who more often employs bushcraft in the um, bush. Things like watching how satellite dishes are oriented, to the alignment of churches, and even the weathering of building faces. The tips go beyond simple direction-finding to locating transportation hubs and such. A neat way to begin thinking about navigation in a different realm and with different contextual cues.
As an aside, I have just ordered Tirstan Gooley's
The Natural Navigator. I'm always interested in navigation and have long loved orienteering, letter-boxing, and more recently, geocaching. Though I love my GPS, I don't want to let my map-and-compass skills stagnate. My favorite guide to navigation (I've read most on the market over the years) is
Finding Your Way in the Outdoors by Robert l. Mooers. I found it better for my needs than the standard
Be Expert with Map and Compass by Bjorn Kjellstrom.
Speaking of navigation, I usually have a clip-on compass on my watchband. My own sense of direction is amazingly good -- I can consistently find nort on a windowless basement in an unfamiliar building, for example -- but this little watchband compass is still handy for on-the-fly navigation. However, starting about four years ago -- during dinnertime chatter with a guest, no less --
the compass reversed direction so North faced South. Ooweeooh!
Now, the replacement has done the same and -- horrors! -- so has the compass mounted in the bell on my Nomad! Nooooo! I have a large collection of compasses (really nice ones, some intended for professional use in timber cruising and township layout as well as for navigation), and I don't want this to happen to them.
I can't figure out why it is occurring. These pole reversals seem to take place here at home and not in the presence of a magnetic field. At first, I thought it might be the microwave oven, but no, that's not it. It is not something that happens all the time; the last watchband compass has worked fine for several years. I have some really strong magnets out in the garage (one at 100lb-pull, the other at 250lb-pull that squeezed a nasty blood blister on one of my fingers last week), but I took care to leave the watch with compass in the house, where they would remain unaffected. This last reversal happened in the backyard. Fortunately, I still have my sense of direction, so whatever has been zapping the compasses has mercifully left me alone.
Any ideas or suggestions as to why this is happening? I get the watch compasses by the dozen and replace them every few years due to wear-and-tear, but this field-pole reversal is something else again. Even using a commercial-grade tape head demagnetizer and refluxing the poles doesn't work as it has on past compasses -- the card just homes in even stronger on Magnetic South.
So am I the source of Global Warming? Will air and sea navigation come to a halt? Will North Americans head for Australia by mistake? Any suggestions for favorite/good books on navigation in a variety of environments?
Best,
Dan. (...the guy with the uh, magnetic personality...)
