navigation

Sorry to all of you who spend relentless sleepless times waiting for the next Sandale update, but we have been busy, well, twilight sailing. Now, we are aware that these are laid back affairs and that trying too hard is frowned upon by true yachties, but we have been winning! It was a bit of a mystery as to how, as we were never first over the line, but we now know why.
After the race there is a BBQ in the clubhouse. The president of the race committee walks around the gathered throng with a bottle of wine to present to the winning skipper. Trouble is, mid week, getting dark early, bit cooler, whatever, most now go straight home. So we, being the die hard BBQers that we are, happily recieve the winner's bottle as the committee member sprints past on their way to the exit. Ahh winning- it is just as simple as turning up!
Just turning up at Bali (and, hopefully, winning) will be the end result of successful navigation and in that regard we resemble the old joke. Each day at mid-day a train arrives in some small wild west town, and exactly at noon blows the whistle. One day the train driver and the Mayor are chatting, and the Mayor tells the driver that he is always amazed at how accurate the trains clock is, so much so that he uses the noontime whistle blow to set the town hall clock.
'Well,' says the train driver, 'I set the train by that clock because it is the only one to be accurate along the entire line.'
We now have the SPOT that tracks the boat and uploads positions to google maps every ten minutes. So if we get lost, we can look ourselves up on google and update our position that will then be refreshed via SPOT to google and we can look ourselves up and know where we are and then.....
It's all a bit circular.
But seriously, navigation requires not only to know where you are, but where you are going. And is not that just like life?
Note that knowing where you have been is of historical interest only. It is like photographs. Pointless. No photographs today.