While reading Scott's epic, 'The last Voyage' I've been entering all his latitude and longtitude co-ordinates from his journal and then inputting the data into an android app which literally plots the course he took to the South Pole by mapping it against google Earth. It's helping me to visualise his progress as he describes it.
It's such a heartbreaking read (on so many levels), but what really impresses me at the moment is the level of skill involved in such an extensive navigation.
Long before global positioning satelights (GPS), a mariner would have to first use a sextant to try to find Polaris, or the equivalent star in the Southern Hemisphere in presumably an often cloudy, night sky, then read the angle between that direction-assisting star and the horizon to work out the latitude, then he would have to use a nautical chronometer to establish the longtitude to extrapolate the approximate location and then do that EVERY single day to know exactly where he was. It fills me with absolute wonder. How on Earth did they manage? To me, that's like directing a rocket to the moon using an old ruler and a piece of string stretched taughtly against a map of the sky!
If the drifting pack ice, freezing temperatures, overloaded and leaking boat, strong tidal currents, leopard seals, killer whales, wildly spinning compass' (due to the proximity of the Pole) and ever dwindling supplies were not enough to contend with, it was nothing short of a miracle that he even got there.
Personally, if I was using the same navigation aids, I doubt I'd even make it to France even if I was half way across the channel and already pointing in the right direction!
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