Rambles: Back to the Bay
Disclaimer: I make no profit from my writing and do not own the Star Trek franchise or the canon characters.
O'Malley's appears with the permission of Starquilter57.
Jim had spent the evening after his visit to Fort Jefferson weighing his options and deciding what to do next. He considered visiting Fort Taylor, but decided against it. Fort Taylor was loaded with many high quality original weapons, from the period of the Civil war. That was much later than the time frame that he was looking at.
He had made reservations to fly back to San Francisco. He was planning to do some more research in the Academy library and review his progress with his adviser, Admiral Pike.
The flight had been uneventful, and he spent most of the flight reading the latest copy of Starfleet Institute Proceedings. There were a couple of interesting looking articles in the tactics series. Unfortunately, they both turned out to be written by two of the academies, oldest arm chair admirals and were little more that a rehash of the current tactical doctrine at the academy.
On arrival at the Academy, Jim walked back to the BOQ. He dumped the laundry in his duffel into the hamper and set his PADD to sync with his account on the main computer. Jim considered it a safety measure, over the years he had lost several important projects to problems with PADDs as well as unfortunate accidents.
He sat at a terminal and logged into the library database. He was looking for data on the accuracy of period navigation equipment. After looking at several entries it appeared that there were two principal navigation instruments in use at the time. The Spanish were using astrolabes. One of the things that he had learned in Key West was that the pilot of the Atocha was known to have carried five on her last voyage. No one knew for sure if that was to have replacements, or if they were for different latitudes. It did establish that the Spanish were using astrolabes in the early 17th century. There was a competing design, the Davis quadrant, that was beginning to be used by English.
He needed to establish the accuracy of the instruments, and if possible get hands on with examples of each. The originals in museums were too valuable to handle. Some things were available as reproductions, and San Francisco had an active SCA chapter. Hopefully someone in SCA had reproductions of the Quadrant and Astrolabe, and would be willing to let him play with them.
After a quick breakfast of oatmeal and fruit, Jim headed for the Library. He spent most of the day in his carrel scouring the catalog and the stacks for books and articles on Astrolabes, and other navigation tools. He wasn't having much success locating copies that he could try first hand. He worked through lunch without realizing it. Finally about five pm he saved his work, transferred a copy to his PADD and shut down his terminal. He was really hungry now, and didn't want to eat in the Officer's mess on a Friday night. That could be really depressing, most of the people there were the ones who had duty that night. Anyone who could get away for the evening, was out in town somewhere.
He thought for a minute, then remembered that Admiral Pike held a standing reservation on Friday nights at a pub just outside the gate. He hadn't bee there since leaving the Academy, but he and Pike had spend many evenings discussing strategy, tactics and logistics over glasses of stout. He left the library and walked at a fast pace toward O'Malley's.
As he entered the pub, he could see Pike at his table in the back. Jim wondered if the Admiral had picked that table for its tactical advantages. Pike waved him over, indicating that he should sit.
"Jim, how is your research coming along?"
Jim smiled, "Not too bad Admiral. I got a chance to see the charts that I needed to look at in Key West. I also took a side trip out to Fort Jefferson."
"First thing, Jim, lets take a look at what you've got. Second thing, O'Malley's house stout or Guiness?.
"O'Malley's for me."
Pike signaled a waitress and soon a platter of potato skins and two stouts appeared on the table.
Jim set his PADD on the table and showed Pike the outline and what he had written so far.
They had thoroughly discussed everything that Jim had by the time they finished their second round.
With the second round two cupcakes appeared. They ate their cupcakes reveling in the coconut frosted indulgence. Jim was gathering his PADD and the cocktail napkins that they had written notes on. He was planning on going back to his room and typing the notes up.
Pike suddenly remembered something. "Jim, you mentioned needing to see and handle period navigation tools. See that guy over at the Compass Box?"
Yes, what am I missing?"
"That's Lieutenant Commander Barbosa. He's the new Navigation Instructor at the Academy. Rumor has it that he makes reproduction instruments. He'll either have the ones you need or know who does, One thing, he's the new Shark in the Boxing Pool. You'll need to beat him, or try really hard to match him."
Boxing the Compass was a popular drinking game, especially with the students learning to be navigators or helmsmen. The "box" was a table with an ornate mariner's compass inlay on it. A shot of rum was placed on each of the 32 points. The players took turns naming the points until a point was misnamed. That player drank the shot, the glass was replaced with a fresh one, and the next contestant would start. A successful boxing was toasted by all players. The game continued until there was only one person standing.
Kirk walked over to the Box. He noticed that the table was ready for a round but that there were no challengers. Barbosa stood at one side of the table, with a slight grin. He looked like a shark in search of prey.
Jim introduced himself, "Hi, I'm Jim Kirk."
Barbosa replied, "Hi Jim – I'm Marco Barbosa. You up for a little game?"
"Your lead or mine?" he asked.
Marco replied, "Challengers first." His smile grew a bit wider.
Jim rattled off all 32 points. "North, North by East, North Northeast, Northeast by N, … North Northwest, North by West, North."
Then the each tossed back a shot of rum.
This went on for some time as they each completed perfect rounds. The pace of play slowed, because they were both looking to be the last man standing.
Jim discussed some of the paper that he was working on and and some of the problems that he still needed to solve.
Marco played another round that ended with a toast.
"Jim, let me see if I understand this. You've looked at some original charts. But you want to get a feel for what navigating with the old tools is like."
"Yeah Marco, that's the whole problem. I thought maybe the SCA would have somebody but they're all about armor and jousting. All of the original ones are under lock and key in museums and untouchable."
"Jim, you want to come back to my quarters, and look at my "toys"?"
"What have you got?"
"One of my buddies on the Riemann was a crack engineer. We used the tools in the machine shop to make a Gunter's quadrant, an Astrolabe and some other stuff. I really miss Cooter. He transferred to the Wolcott and was lost in the Battle of Vulcan."
"One other thing Jim, if you really want to get the feel of these tools we need to get out on the water. We'll need to swing by sick bay for a sober up shot, or things will be really miserable tomorrow."
As they left O'Malley's with a slight wobble, Jim thought that he might have just made a good friend.
TBC