Hilton Head Island: ringed; PATHS OF GLORY; digital sextant

 

From 7 PM Friday until 11 AM this Monday morning the temperature here has been 45º or 46ºF/7.5ºC and most of the time it has been raining.  Not quite Chamber of Commerce weather, but there is worse.  Carol just experienced a white out in lake effect snow in Evanston where the wind chill is below 0ºF/-18ºC.  

Rain has ceased here for a few hours.  High tide was near 11 AM, so under continued solid low overcast I carried the pile ring down to GANNET and easily fit it over the top of the piling.  GANNET now has lines at four points and should not rub against the dock.  

That was quick.  I only saw the pile float on the other boat a week ago.

I watched PATHS OF GLORY on Amazon Prime yesterday, or rather re-watched because I saw the film when it was first released in 1957.  There is a recent unintentional pattern of my rereading or re-watching books and films that influenced me as a teenager.  I have no fondness for my childhood and no desire to return to those less than golden days.  I am enjoying being an old man.  

Kazantzakis disappointed, but Joyce Cary’s THE HORSE’S MOUTH, both novel and film, and PATHS OF GLORY most definitely do not.  I have long believed that most soldiers do not die for a cause; they die because of the egos and stupidity of generals and politicians.  And once kings.  That belief is based in part from my reading history, but in part from PATHS OF GLORY.

Stanley Kubrick directed the film shot dramatically in black and white and is listed as one of the three screenwriters.  Kirk Douglas stars in perhaps his finest performance.

Set in WW1 1917 France, the story is of the motivations and consequences of a forced hopeless attack on a German position.  I am not going to say more except that PATHS OF GLORY might be the best film you have never seen.

From Zane comes a link to a digital sextant for which I thank him.  This is an intriguing idea, but I expect not cost effective and I wonder about its durability at sea.  As the article states, price is not yet available.

https://www.oceannavigator.com/a-digital-sextant/

I navigated by sextant on my first two circumnavigations.  I still carry a plastic one on GANNET, but haven’t taken a sight in decades.  

I think that there is something to be said for any sailor going offshore to know how to take a noon sight for latitude which is quite easy and can also give a rough idea of longitude.  I googled ‘noon sight’ and found some explanations for how to take one that were incorrectly simple and many that were way too complicated.  Maybe someday I’ll write out my own.