Losing Our Way in the World
By JOHN EDWARD HUTH
Published: July 20, 2013

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — IN 2003, my wife and I spent a week on an island off the coast of Maine. One day I rented a recreational kayak from the woman who runs the local post office. She did not, however, have any maps or compasses.

Foolishly, I set off without them, paddling across a two-mile-wide bay with the life jacket tucked under the seat, wearing only a cotton T-shirt and shorts. I was about halfway across when a thick fog rolled in. I couldn’t see the shore.

Fighting panic, I somehow had the presence of mind to try to find my bearings from natural clues. I checked the wind direction, figuring it would act as a natural compass. It was out of the southeast. Good. Which way was the swell? Out of the southwest. Good. I could hear waves grinding against the rock-strewn beach to the northwest. When the fog obliterated all sight of land, I used these clues to guide myself to a narrow channel, and then followed the wakes of lobster buoys in the incoming tide back to safety.


http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/21/opinion/sunday/losing-our-way-in-the-world.html?pagewanted=1&_r=0
http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674072824&content=book

Ken,
I'm up in Maine right now 10 miles inland from Rockland. I'm sure you have heard the old warning about being immersed in the water up here without a wetsuit: 50 degree water--50 yards from shore--50/50 chance!
Jim