The dial on your watch is maybe an inch across? You can align it within 3 degrees of the sun? It's acurate to maybe 30 seconds, set to within an hour of local sun time (as against GMT +/- ??) and your estimate of "halfway" is good to another 3 degrees?
Add up all the possibilities and you might be out by 20 degrees. If you are in trouble and there is a road across your path roughly North and 10 miles away that's fine, you'll hit the road where you expect. If you are aiming for a well in a desert valley 50 miles out you'll be in trouble unless you have a lot of water and petrol to spare looking for a three foot hole in the ground (better to aim off and then know which direction to search in).
Good emergency technique though and better that moss on stones and so forth.
To make the sundial methods work you need one of these:
The sun compass (threewheelbonnienonbike)
Fun to play with, but doesn't compare to a working GPS and really too big with all the watches, calculators, compass etc. to be a useful backup. It makes you appreciate just how good the early desert navigators were.
Andy
Last edited by Threewheelbonnie; 23 Sep 2009 at 16:30.
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