Passage to Grenada Feb 19,09

Thursday Feb 19,09 Day 12

The winds picked up a bit during the night but we are still sailing at only about 5 knots over the ground.
I helped Gary do some star sights this morning and I did a lunar one. Taking them is easier than doing Sun
sights actually because, for stars at least, there are no edges to worry about. Also there is no need to worry
about the shades you can of course look at stars and the moon directly without getting blinded. So finding
the object is as easy as setting the sextant to zero and pointing it directly at the star or moon.

The proper way to do it is to set the sextant to the approximate altitude for the star from the almanac then
when you aim the sextant at the horizon beneath the star it should be there within a degree or so.

I have been reading a fascinating book I borrowed from Kolin called “Celestial Navigation in the GPS
Age” by John Karl, ISBN 978-0-939837-75-5. This book is not only a useful introduction to navigation
but it has some very good procedures and things to watch out for. One of the cool things is that it has
written out the formulas in such a way that you can do sight reductions with a scientific calculator, no
tables or plotting needed.

A good book to add to the Xmas list of all those budding navigators out there :-)

More later…

The Captain made a presentation on the islands we will be visiting in the Caribbean shortly. Very
interesting and just enough info to get us excited. I was on helm during the presentation which was on the
quarter deck. A big squall was building upwind of us and we had to shorten sail. The squall blew in with a
much stronger wind and driving rain. Once the rain stopped th wind continued ad we are now sailing along
under all squares at 7 knot over the ground.

We should make Grenada in a couple of days at this rate.

We will be going to an island off Grenada first called Caricou, the only island that still has it’s original
Carib name. The name means “island surrounded by reefs”. Hmmm…

If we get in there by Monday we will be in time for Carnival which would be really cool!
I’m on galley tomorrow. Man that week went by pretty fast! I get to sleep in an extra two hours plus one
more because we shifted our clocks back one hour.

Thanks for reading.
KJ