Dance With Me..

[Jacky]

I smirk, "See these lines?" I draw my finger over the longitudes that go north-south first, then the latitudes that go west-east. "They divide the world into 'parts', so say for instance we would be here," I point at the Netherlands, "Our latitude'd be 52 degrees north," I point at the line that says so, "And our longitude would be 6 degrees east. See that?"

[Hannah]

"... but we are on a ship.. and we're moving... how do you know..." i stop talking, since i dont know how to say it

[Jacky]

(een lesje navigatie van captain Jack Sparrow coming up )

I give her a reassuring smile, quite content with her curiosity. It's admirable. "Well, lemme explain how we can find our longitude first, aye?" I spin the glob until Greenwhich comes in view, and I point at the line that belongs with it, "This one is 0 degrees longitude and time is the clue for knowing the one YOU are on. Cos the earth is divided into 24 longitude lines, each representing an hour's difference from Greenwich," I tap on the line again, "Since it takes the Earth 24 hours to rotate. So what you do is bring an accurate clock aboard set to Greenwhich's time. And you determine the mid-day hour on your own location because that's when the sun is highest in the sky. You check the difference in time with greenwhich and translate that into positioning." I spin the globe a bit again, "Say we would find a time difference of two hours.. with greenwhich being two hours AHEAD of us. That would mean we'd be 30 degrees -or two longitude lines- westwards from Greenwhich." I look at her curiously, "Does that make sense?"

[Hannah]

"No.." i say frowning and shake my head a little "since when it is not mid-day... how.. do ya find out then?"

[Jacky]

"You can always find out the time by reading the sun or stars." I clarify, "Midday was just an example, it's easy to determine that. The lower the sun is to the horizon, the more time you are from midday. And at night the position of the stars can tell you how late it is."

[Hannah]

I have heared about that ceveral times, back in tortuga. ".. how do they do that?" I ask him. i know they change.. so..

[Jacky]

"At night?" I look over to her, "..I suppose it'll be another two hours before the sun sets, luv. Want me to show ye tonight?"

[Hannah]

I nod and look at the sun. Eventhough it is not that high above the horizon anymore.. there would be no way for me to tell what time it is now.
I never used the sun or the stars to know the time.. i never lived with 'time'. i ate when i was hungry, i went to bed when i was tired..

[Jacky]

"Ye have plenty of time to learn all of this, luv." I tell her, "Soon as you figured out the longitude system with it's time-estimation, you're halfway there." I wink at her.

[Hannah]

I sigh a little and look at the earth... ball thing, chewing on my lip ".. how did you learn all this?"