Back from the Skagit

Last night punctuated by sounds of quiet movement near the tent and muffled thumps farther away. In the morning, we determined from tracks that our tent visitor was likely a raccoon. However, campers across from us reported scaring one of the bears away from their boat just after full dark. Enough is enough, we thought, and packed for home. Nola's got a class to teach tomorrow evening, and she should be rested for that, and there's not a lot of rest to be had in Bearryland.

So a round of laundry & resupply, and we'll set out Friday for the Cumberland-Courteney area of Vancouver Island.

The Riddle of the Compass, sadly, turned out to be not really worth the effort. It's too bad, but the author could not turn up any hard data to settle the main questions of the book, and instead recapped the high points of a couple of Crusades, Venetian history, and, for no reason at all, the travels of Marco Polo and voyages of de Gama and Magellan. Was there such a person as Flavio Gioa, supposed European inventor of the compass? Don't know, but there's another Flavio who might have either invented it or recounted how the Chinese did so. Who did invent the compass? The Chinese, for religious purposes, but owing to a lack of source material (apparently burned by the Jesuits), no further details as to if and when it might have been used for navigation. The entire book was like that. De Gama and Magellan were tossed in as they sailed with compasses on board. Since every other European sea captain of the time did so, I fail to see the significance.

There some good stuff toward the beginning about how the European version of the navigation compass grew out of some bright fellows putting lodestones together with windroses, according to either Flavio's insights or Flavio's retelling of Chinese insights, depending on where you set a comma. Might've made an interesting magazine article.