By: Blonde Two
There is a very clever thing that allows you (if you are Blonde enough to leave your compass on the floor) to find out where north is using only the sun and your analogue watch. (It definitely doesn’t work with a digital one, I have tried it.)
1. Point the hour hand of your watch at the sun (it is easier to do this if you take it off your wrist first).
2. Observe the line that bisects the hour hand and the number twelve on your watch. This is the north/south line. If it is the afternoon you need to go anti-clockwise from your hour hand to find south, if it is the morning you will need to go clockwise.
3. Once you have finished feeling giddy from this multiple rotation (and possible Blondeness), I suggest that you get your compass out of your pocket and do the thing properly.
I regularly forget how to do the clever watch thing so Mr B2 and I decided to practise (he has a snazzy new watch that knows where north is without any pointing at all). We followed the instructions at 19:55 and they worked beautifully; but (and this is where the Blondeness comes in) I wanted to check that they would still work if it was 03:00. (This will immediately appear to anyone normal person as a very Blonde thing to attempt.)
Blonde Thing 1: I glibly pointed the number three in the direction of the sun; forgetting that it was 19:55 and the sun wouldn’t be in the same place at 03:00. Needless to say, south had mysteriously moved.
Blonde Thing 2: It took me around fifteen minutes to realise that the sun wouldn’t be shining anywhere that we could see it at 03:00.
Blonde Thing 3: It is British Summer Time and it was all wrong anyway!
I have decided to carry a spare compass instead!
If I can see the sun (an odds-on chance I can’t in the UK) I know roughly where it should be at any time of the day and that is good enough for me. At least I don’t have a problem remembering that it rises in the east, whilst I agree with you, remembering all that watch stuff has the potential for too many errors.
I met a geologist on one of my walks who had been on expedition to Siberia. He was dropped off alone by the others to spend a week doing research and he had a map. Overnighting from his camp he became totally disorientated and couldn’t make the map fit the terrain at all. He then took note of the sun and compass points and found he had the map upside down – all the writing was in that unintelligible Russian script which looks ok backwards, sideways or upside down.
Excellent Siberian story! Try doing it all in the Southern Hemisphere where the sun is in completely the wrong place and insists on appearing to move backwards.
Yes, and the moon appears upside down!
Have never noticed that, must go back to NZ soon and observe this phenomenon!
it’s good to see Scouting for Boys (and Girls) recycled – again
I tried to get hold of some small spare compasses on the internet; they all appear to have a spiky thing and a hole for a pencil, so I am going to the shop instead. (Which will be much more fun – visit to the seaside, walk on the cliff top, lunch at the cafe, try out new rain cape.)
That does indeed sound like great fun. A Blonde day out in fact! Am intrigued by the spiky thing!