I only recently learned that Jack London ("Call of the Wild") also was a sailor and one of the very early "cruisers" (in the modern sense of the word) across the Pacific at the beginning of the last century. "Cruise of the Snark" is the book London wrote about this adventure and chapter 4, "Finding One's Way About", is about celestial navigation and its side effects - definitely worth reading (a quick six pages). The book is in the public domain so I assume it's OK to post this here:
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CruiseOfSnark_Navigation.pdf [88.38 KiB]
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Makes you think of London as something like the "left wing anti-thesis" to William F. Buckley. Born underprivileged, self-educated and and on the opposite end of the political spectrum from WFB, but - like Buckley - a prolific writer and enthusiastic sailor. Compare the six pages above to the 18 pages Buckley devoted to the same topic in "Airborne"...