Back in the days before Satnav, Omega, Loran - it was the navigation team's job to pick out the stars and get a good celestial fix so the ship's position could be determined and bad things like reefs and islands avoided.
Somewhere I hope QM2 Sprague and my old navigation gang are enjoying the lifetime worth of beers they earned as we naviguessed our way about the Western Pacific and those other waters as we found Fiji and New Zealand right where they were supposed to be. No navigator ever had a better set of QMs and I hope I told them that at the time.
Now, my dad was an Air Force navigator who was curious about the "Navy Way" of navigation and was surprised to learn we didn't use bubble sextants and only shot stars at dawn and dusk (except for sun lines, of course). I told him our ships didn't go fast enough for more frequent fixes to make much difference, unlike his aircraft.
Now for the bad pun - it's your chance to be a star and shine by donating to Valour IT and helping wounded soldiers, sailors and Marines (see here).
Team Navy
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