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i learned celestial navigation when i was 13, far from the ocean.
my dad was a master mariner running copper ore from africa to europe. on a fine summer day he visiting my older brother who had just moved.
dad was shooting the sun from the balcony with a bucket of water as artifical horizon. when i arrived, he had just announced the street-map as 2' or 3' off. my brother contested it.
normally, the map would have been all the proof i'd need that dad was wrong. but i was impressed with my dad's confidence in his findings. that triggered interest into what he was doing. well, and maybe there was some element of prooving my brother wrong.
anyway, dad and i spent the afternoon shooting the sun and angles between landmarks like churchtowers and chimneys. with dad teaching me step by step. my own sights, even though they got better from hour to hour, weren't good enough to prove one way or another, but it was the closest i felt to my dad since my parents got divorced. maybe ever.
for my 14th birthday my dad gave me a russian sextant, together with almanac and all the tables, many of which i would never be able to use.
i guess i dissapointed dad somewhat when i choose to become a mechanical engineer over a maritime career, tho he never let on.
dad died last november. to his very last day he took his sights, either from his window or the sun terrace of his retirement home.
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