Well I must say I have been eyeing the Mnandi since it came out and now that I have had such an excellent experience with my first CRK knife, I'm now looking a lot closer at the Mnandi and even getting renewed curiosity about the large Sebenza. I'm looking around my office/playroom right now thinking "hmmm what could I put on Ebay to raise money for another CRK." <img src="/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

Yup, the sundial method...but, of course, it assumes you can see the sun...no problem in Texas <img src="/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" /> but if you go north a bit we're having some pretty cruddy weather as of late.

Actually we havenn't seen much of the sun in a couple weeks down here either. Although as you say, fog and heavy cloud cover is pretty rare 'round these here parts. <img src="/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

Well Mnandi sure is pretty but I can't justify a knife that small as hard I abuse knives. I did however order a Sebenza large classic last night. You people are gonna get me killed (by my wife) you know.

I just got out and dusted off my copy of FM21... the big book, not the feild guide, and reread (acutally more like studied, memorized and practiced) chapter 18. There's actually a bunch of pretty effective methods for determining direction that I had forgotten and/or overlooked in the past. If you can see the stars (or even just the moon) at night or have enough sunlight to cast a decent shadow during the day the only real disadvantage to these methods compared to a small button compass is that a couple of them require time (no more than 20mins for all but one method) to aquire a decent heading. Thanks for inspiring me to do the research. I feel much less dependant on my compass now that I am armed with this knowledge.