So, there it was, the first Talk of the 2023-4 Winter Programme. Jeremy Batch, recently retired from the Cruising Association, managed to navigate his way out of Limehouse, London to get to Guildford Station - despite incidents "on the line", cancelled and delayed trains, and roadworks. That boded well for his talk on the topic of "Navigation through the Ages".

The assembled audience of some 32 people at the clubhouse, and another 5 on-line via Zoom, were glad that he made it, as he gave an entertaining presentation of Navigation from the earliest ages.

OK, it did start with some detail about triangles, squares, circles and such-like, but isn’t that what navigation is all about? We learnt where the word "navigation" came from …. Navis - ship and Gares …. way. And by the way, the talk wasn't dry, Jeremy dropped in lots of little snippets and worldly anecdotes, often raising laughter from the audience. And his presentation material was fascinating, with great graphics, and to my mind, especially of the incredible and numerous different instruments used to record the sun and star's position. Ingenious for each epoch of time.

A loud round of applause rounded off a very convivial evening with lots of member natter and chatter, and sets us up nicely for the next talk - from an ex MAIB inspector on recent "Sailing Investigations and Reports". Shall we see if we can get an event better attendance for this next one? What are the odds ….. and Jeremy knew the answer to that conundrum!

By Paul Armstrong - GCCC Vice Commodore