A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
From: John D. Howard
Date: 2018 Nov 12, 10:25 -0800
Yes, position finding is a great part of navigation. I said nothing about navigators, only about navigation. Would you say a surveyor is a navagator? Both navigators and surveyors fix a position but I say they are different and fix positions for different reasons.
If you are at a fixed, known position and want to determine the location of say a mountian peak you survey, using surveying methods. If you want to travel to the mountain than you navigate.
Cook was a great navigator but also a great surveyor and map maker. I think Columbus was also a great navigator - he left Spain, sailed across an ocean and then found his way back to Spain. ( Three times, if I recall. ) . He did not fix the position of the islands he landed on the way a surveyor would but he could navigate to and from Spain.
I say that a navigator wants to know where he traveled to - where he is in his trip. I do not think you are navigating if you are not moving.
Yes, one has to be carefull of words but I think navigation implies moving. If you sit on a hill and fix the position of points all around you and draw a map you are not navigating. If someone uses your map to walk to a point then they are navigating. Yes, you can ( and do ) draw a map as you travel but you must travel to navigate.
I HAVE SPOKEN! ;-)