I actually carry (on my boat, not person) a packet called
"Particularized Navigation" by the late Francis Wright. She was my
navigation teacher and good friend, and had an office down the hall
from me.

The packet includes a small book which explains basic celestial and
other navigation techniques, and has the tables needed to take simple
fixes. It even has a method for determining time. If covers various
emergency situations, such as lost almanac, etc. This is a 66 page
book, easy to carry.

The second item is a 50 page pamphlet, that includes simplified
instructions, plus various tables including the day by day Sun
declination tables, that, with a Sextant would give you latitude to
about a mile. This is small enough to slip in your pocket.

Finally, there are several sheets of paper, that includes a protractor
template that would give you about one degree accuracy as a sextant,
and simple declination tables. With care you might get 30-60 mile
accuracy on Latitude.

Whenever I travel on a Mickey Mouse cruise ship, I carry this.

P.S. You may remember that my late Father-in-Law navigated 1800 miles
in an open lifeboat after being torpedoed at the end of WWII. They
had a sextant, tables and charts, and Movado wris****ch. Dave claims
they always knew where they were, and only missed Tobago because they
were afraid of going in at night. They ending up near Curacao, having
sailed from 800 miles west of Dakar.



Joe wrote:
The fact is most of you here never leave the sight of land because your
boats are not steel and so seaworthy as to be near unsinkable, so let's
pretend.

You are on a Disney cruise ship, the SS Mickey Mouse hits an iceberg
and sinks.

Luckly you, clawed your way aboard one of the lifeboats.
Now you must take command and and navigate your boat back to land.

Robert fumbled aboard and crushed the only sextant flatter than a
pancake.

The only watch you have is a Rolex bought from a NYer and as soon as
it hit... water it shorted out and stopped functioning.

You have the typical items found in a lifeboat, minus the
compass(stolen from all the lifeboats by a rum soaked Canook) how do
you figure out where you are, and were you need to go?

Joe