>> However, when we saw the mainland on Sunday, we could see the Palos Verdes Peninsula, but because of the distance we were from it, we weren't sure where Cabrillo Beach was at on it. The other three weren't sure but thought that a particular bump on the horizon was Cabrillo Beach. That bump was significantly to the right of our bearing. They wanted to head for it. I had been the one navigating with the compass, and I had been working hard to keep us following the 20 degree bearing. I told them that since we didn't know if the bump was Cabrillo, we should trust the compass and stay on the bearing, until we were closer to shore and could recognize some landmarks. I felt it was more conservative to follow the compass rather than chase landmarks we weren't sure about. I had a GPS on deck that I could have easily turned on and used to resolved the whole thing, but I would rather make a recoverable mistake with a compass than use a GPS. To me the GPS is only a back up for safety. >> You had a GPS handy that could have resolved your uncertainty and kept your group together, yet you didn't use it? I don't understand this kind of thinking at all. Seems to me that when you have a navigation problem, you should use all the tools you have -- both mental and physical -- to solve it, not rely on just one method, especially when you know that you don't know what to aim at. In your case, all you needed to do to establish some certainty was to turn on your GPS unit, select the Cabrillo Beach waypoint as your destination, and follow the arrow on the GPS unit long enough to identify a landmark near your destination; then you could have turned off the GPS unit for the rest of the crossing. Also, your companions should not have left the navigation up to you, though it seems they had a better idea of their course than you did. Chuck Holst *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List Submissions: paddlewise_at_lists.intelenet.net Subscriptions: paddlewise-request_at_lists.intelenet.net Website: http://www.paddlewise.net/ ***************************************************************************
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