The über camera strap

The camera straps included with pro-level DSLRs from the Canon/Nikon/et al factories have improved significantly over the years, from the stingy half-inch-wide strips of yore to reasonably comfortable nylon webbing an inch and a half across. However, at the same time we’re carrying cameras increasingly burdened with additional battery packs and massive lenses. So overall comfort has scarcely advanced. 

 For those of us who pursue photography in the outdoors, especially in active or even hazardous situations, the stock straps fall short in several other ways. Adjusting the length from a cold morning under a down jacket to a warm afternoon in shirtsleeves is such a pain as to be not      worth the trouble. And the only way to get the camera off is to lift it over your head and whatever headgear you might be wearing. Usually this is simply inconvenient, but what if you need to ditch it right now in a real emergency?

These considerations and others inspired William Egbert of Vulture Equipment Works to start from scratch and design the A2 and A4 camera straps.

The Vulture straps are made from true military-spec nylon webbing, an inch and three-quarters wide. The weave is tight but extremely pliable; I found the A2 strap conformed to my shoulder comfortably even burdened with a 5D MKII and a heavy lens. It’s also adjustable for length in seconds. But that’s not where the innovation is. The connection to the camera’s stock strap eyelets is accomplished with two short “lower risers,” which then clip to the main strap via a pair of carabiners. Not the cheesy little things you find in the jar at the counter of the hardware store—these are stout mountaineering-grade items.

The carabiners perform several functions. You can unclip one to remove the camera and strap without having to go over your head. You can also convert the system to single-point carry by clipping one carabiner to the other. Traveling alone in a vehicle? Clip the risers to the posts of the headrest on the passenger’s seat. Your camera will be instantly accessible, yet immune to bouncing off the seat. You can also easily rig slings to suspend the camera inside vehicles or aircraft, or attach extra sets of lower risers to other things you might want to carry with the strap—heavy tripods, for example.

For me, their most useful function is realized by clipping them to the Vulture Equipment Works “A2T” strap. This cunning device is best described as a reverse monopod: Picture an adjustable length of nylon webbing with a loop at each end. Clip the lower risers on your camera into the upper loop, step into the lower loop and put upward pressure on the camera. I was astonished at how much stability it adds and how much camera shake was eliminated for video work, all from an accessory you can roll up and carry in a bush-jacket pocket. A brilliant accessory (and which could be used with a standard camera strap by looping the strap through it).

Monopod in a pocket: the VEW A2T

The A4 camera strap is similar to the A2, but adds a true one-hand quick-release. Normally secured with a safety-wire loop, this buckle will instantly free you from the camera with a single squeeze—assuming you find yourself in a position where you’re willing to instantly free yourself from $5,000 worth of camera and lens. I can think of a couple times I’ve been close. There was this elephant in Zambia . . .

While the Vulture straps adjust for length quickly, the shortest setting was a bit long for me. I found I could easily reduce the length beyond that setting, but then a tail of strap hung loosely. I’m considering simply cutting it off and burning the end; however, that would eliminate the nice factory-stitched end. Perhaps Vulture will offer optional strap lengths in the future. I also worry about those stout carabiners damaging the camera itself—I noticed that, with shorter lenses, the carabiner could theoretically whack the front element. Whether it could do so with enough momentum to cause damage is speculation. 

If you think you’ve got a need for the stoutest, made-in-the-U.S camera strap on the planet, Vulture Equipment Works is HERE.

Remove before flying: A safety wire secures the quick-release when you're unlikely to be chased by elephants. 

Coming soon to the JATAC

A brief tutorial on hill-descent control

Truck and SUV manufacturers are incorporating more and more technological gadgets into their vehicles with the goal of enhancing off-highway performance and safety. One that is becoming nearly universal is hill-descent control. I was dubious of the system at first, but after driving several vehicles equipped with it, I have to say it does a better job than I can do in my manual-transmission FJ40 using engine braking along with threshold application of the brake pedal. Yes, you're relying on a mechanical aid, and I believe you should also practice the skills to do without it just in case something fails, but otherwise it's a brilliant invention and makes negotiating a very steep downhill slope child's play. 

I'm going to be publishing a series of short videos on various systems such as this, for those not already familiar with them. Here is the first one, on our Vimeo channel (click on the title to go to the full-size version):

Overland Tech and Travel - Hill-descent control from ConserVentures on Vimeo. 

Idiot-proof two-way satellite communication

There are certain things I’m good—even very good—at learning intuitively. Bicycle and car repair, plumbing and electrical systems, carpentry, leatherwork—these are examples of skills I learned by simple trial and error, or with a book. I picked up adequate welding pretty quickly with some tutoring from Master Brian DeArmon. No “assembly required” toy or piece of furniture has ever given me the slightest trouble. 

Sadly, computers, smartphones, GPS units, and similar devices are not among those things. My wife could sit down with a laptop manufactured by Alpha Centaurians who use click language and a base 7 numbering system, mess around with it for about five minutes, then exclaim, “Oh! Okay . . . got it.” Not me—I still struggle with basic keyboard shortcuts on my Mac Air, and the single most frequently uttered line from my desk in our office is, “Honey, can you come here and make this damn thing work?” It’s not that I’m a Luddite—I’m in awe of the new world represented by these tools. I simply have no aptitude for them.

Which, of course, makes me the ideal person to test them. If I can master, say, a GPS unit, it’s a safe bet an average three-year-old can as well. I’m referring here to a three-year-old bonobo.

When I stopped by the Text Anywhere booth at the Outdoor Retailer show last summer, the device on display certainly looked Jonathan-friendly: It had exactly one operating button, for “on” and “off.” (Oh! Okay . . . got it, I thought.) The information claimed one could send and receive text messages from virtually anywhere on earth through the Iridium satellite network (Fantastic, I thought) by synching with a Wi-Fi-equipped smartphone, laptop, or tablet.

Sigh . . . I should have known there’d be a catch. Nevertheless, I asked to take home a unit to test, and arranged with Gary Harder of ROM Communications to walk me through the setup later over the phone. 

Unlike some similar devices, the TA uses a web app rather than an OS-specific app, which gives the user more flexibility in the choice of paired devices. Also, critically, it can be activated with a $29.99 monthly rate (which includes 100 text or email messages, each up to 160 characters long), or the account can be idled for $5 per month—extremely handy if, like most people, you only take a few trips per year when satellite messaging would come in handy or essential. The 4 by 4 by 1.5-inch cuboid device works off four available-everywhere AA batteries (alkaline or rechargeable) or an included 12V cigarette-plug adapter. The Iridium satellite network ensures true global coverage, unlike systems reliant on the Globalstar or Inmarsat networks.

I called Gary a few weeks later, and (after teaching me how to use the speaker function on my iPhone: “Oh! Okay . . . got it”), he figuratively held my hand through a sequence most people would do on their own with the quick-start guide included with the device, after setting up an account. I powered up the Text Anywhere on the hood of the Land Cruiser (as with any satellite-dependent system you need a clear view of the sky), found its network on the iPhone, then used Safari to connect to the Text Anywhere site, and add a bookmark for it on the phone’s home screen. 

“All right, what now?” I asked. 

“That’s it,” he replied.

“Um, say again?”

“That’s it; you’re ready to go. When you want to send a text or email, just power up the device, call up the Wi-Fi on your phone and choose the Text Anywhere network. Then tap the Text Anywhere icon on the home screen, and hit the mail icon. Type in either an email address or a phone number, then type your message. The red status light on the unit stops blinking when the message has been sent successfully. If someone sends you a message while it’s off, it will be stored in the system for five days until you log on again.”

I made a vaguely bonobo-like sound of amazement. Could it possibly be that easy? I hung up, powered everything down, started it up again, and sent a text to Roseann, who was in town (I do have opposable thumbs). A couple of minutes later I got a return text. 

Sold.

Since then I’ve sent and received messages in various locations outside cell range and have yet to have a failure (unlike some devices, the Text Anywhere only connects via satellite, rather than bouncing back and forth between cell and satellite networks). I’m hoping to hang on to the review sample long enough to take it to Africa later this year.

Besides the utter simplicity of use and ease of idling the account, there’s another difference between the Text Anywhere and, for example, the DeLorme inReach or SPOT devices: The Text Anywhere includes no SOS emergency button, so it’s up to you to arrange help by communicating with friends or local emergency services. Frankly that’s fine by me, as it will eliminate expensive false alarms such as the incident we had at last year’s Overland Expo, when a visiting motorcyclist accidentally activated the SOS on his SPOT (he was found by local rescue services having a beer in a Flagstaff pub). Also, while it’s more trouble than hitting a single button, you can arrange far more effective and relevant assistance by making potential rescuers aware of the exact situation. Response might vary considerably depending on whether you’re lying with a broken leg at 16,000 feet on Mount Kenya, or sitting 10,000 feet below with your arm swelling from a puff adder bite.

Mostly the Text Anywhere will simply enable you to keep in touch with friends and family no matter where you are on the planet. Two-way communication means they’ll know you’re okay and you’ll know they’re okay. You can also post to social media to update hundreds of “friends” at a time about your adventures.

After several products have attempted with varying degrees of success to provide global text communication for travelers to remote locations, the Text Anywhere finally has made the concept accessible and simple, even for those of us lacking basic technological aptitude.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go have a banana.

The Text Anywhere is $399 and is compatible with almost all Wi-Fi-enabled devices. An iSE version, compatible only with iOS devices (iPhone, iPad, and iTouch) is $339. Text Anywhere is HERE. (http://www.textanywhere.ca)

Farewell to an overlanding dog

If you’ve done much exploring around the backroads and four-wheel-drive trails of Arizona in the last few years, odds are you’ll remember at some point noticing a silver Jeep Wrangler being led by a black lab mix with a white chest patch, either trotting along at a good pace on a dirt road or scrambling up a 4+ obstacle. This was Brian DeArmon’s Cherokee, who for a decade served as companion and canine overland ambassador extraordinaire. Cherokee got along with just about any human, any dog, and any thing—with the notable exception of scale RC models, which she despised and attempted to forcibly disassemble whenever one dared to buzz through a group camp.

She also had a fine-tuned sense of diplomacy. Most other dogs she would bound right up to, tail wagging. But at a camp six or seven years ago, when our border collie Rob was old, half-blind and deaf, and frightened of other dogs, we watched Cherokee gallop up to the margin of our site, then wait, tail wagging, until Rob noticed her. She then tiptoed in slowly, still wagging, until Rob was able to take full measure of her and relax. This, we realized, was a dog that grasped senility.

As she got older and grayer, Cherokee’s extra-vehicular excursions became fewer and shorter, and she got used to riding in the cab of Brian’s Dodge pickup, to be lowered to the ground where she could wander around camp with just as much joie de vivre but a bit more dignity.

There will be an empty space in those camps from now on. Cherokee RIP. And say hello to Rob for us.

Last-minute gift ideas

When it's 20 degrees Fahrenheit outside and the only adventure you can think of involves a warm drink in an armchair by the fire, it's time to grab some adventure reading:

OUTDOORX4 – Charter subscription, $25.

ADVENTURE MOTORCYCLE MAGAZINE – Digital subscription, $8.99. 

ANXIETY ACROSS THE AMERICAS – by Bill Dwyer, $13.99

CRAMPBUSTER $9.86. This stocking stuffer will be much-appreciated by anyone who cruises long distance on a bike. From AMotoStuff.com

HYBRIDLIGHT 150C, $50. This is the first solar-powered flashlight I’ve tried that produces a beam useful for more than reading or walking. Its 150-lumen output elevates it to the status of a practical security light—sufficient for, say, checking the bush for the eyeshine of hippos on the way from campfire to tent—and it will do so for eight hours on one charge. Not only that, the 150C can be stored for seven years with only a ten percent loss in charge. Need more? A USB and micro-USB port allow you to quick-charge the light—or charge your cell phone while the light soaks up energy from the sun. Hybridlight

TEMBO TUSK EXTREME DUTY LANTERN HANGER,  $95. If the idea of an “extreme duty” lantern hanger strikes you as humorous, you’ve never used some of the lame examples I’ve tried over the years. This one will last forever and effortlessly support your heaviest vintage Petromax. A mid-pole bracket takes a roll of paper towels, and auxiliary hooks hold kitchen utensils. The hanger  disassembles into an easily stowable 12-inch-long case. TemboTusk

SNOW PEAK MICRO OVAL DUTCH OVEN, $86. Snow Peak’s products show up in my product guides as often as BMW cars show up in Car and Driver’s Ten Best lists, and for the same reasons: Both companies are driven to engineer excellence into the most ordinary product, be it a sedan or a backpacking stove. This compact Dutch oven is no exception. It’s hand-crafted in the famous Iwate region of Japan, using a proprietary silica/sand casting technique, and is just the right size for cooking dinner or dessert for two. Snow Peak 

BAJA RACK JEEP JK EXPEDITION RACK, $970. The Jeep Wrangler Rubicon is America’s world-class expedition vehicle, and Baja Rack manufactures a roof rack worthy of that stature. The full-length rack has a dynamic load capacity of 300 pounds (600 pounds static, if you want to stand on it for photography or game viewing), and mounts to the chassis and A-pillar of the JK with no drilling required. A flat platform in the rear is designed to accept a roof tent, and numerous accessories allow attaching everything from fuel cans to Maxtrax sand mats. Whether you’re pitting your JK against Moab or Mozambique, the Expedition Rack will live up to its name. Baja Rack (Also for Land Rover, Toyota, Mercedes, Hummer)

 

National Luna Weekender 52-liter fridge/freezer, $1470. I’ve never figured out why National Luna calls this the “Weekender.” It’s fully capable of handling enough food for a full-on expedition—as one just did for us on a three-week excursion through Tanzania and Kenya. We kept plenty of fresh food cold in the fridge, and the freezer compartment, in addition to maintaining ice cream at the proper chill, also handily re-froze blue-ice packs for Roseann’s sprained ankle. The aluminum cladding saves six pounds (and $180) over the stainless model, but as far as we could tell is just as rugged. The National Luna repays its premium price with a micro-processor controlled combination of fast chilling and extremely efficient energy usage. Equipt

FORCE K9 TACTICAL VEST, $150. It had to happen: A tactical dog vest. Kidding aside, the Force K9 vest’s PALS webbing allows easy attachment of  a myriad of MOLLE accessories, from pouches suitable for Purina to water bladders. You can even have one custom-tailored to your Black Ops dog’s measurements. They’re missing a bet if they don’t introduce a doggie shemagh. Force K9

 

OVERLAND TRAINING, $CUSTOM. The gift of training keeps giving for years, in confidence and competence down the road. May we suggest a couple of our partners for great training experiences: Through teamwork and the execution of strategic decisions in naturally challenging settings, High Trails Expeditions will teach you and your team—whether business or expedition—how to understand the consequences of actions to yourself and others. This is the ultimate leadership course built for people like us, around overland skills. If your passion is adventure motorcycling, then look no further than Jim Hyde's offerings at Raw-Hyde Adventures. Now with an outpost in southern Colorado's Continental Divide country as well as SOCAL, you can learn with the best, in the most beautiful places. High Trails Expeditions, Raw-Hyde Adventures.
  

TRIUMPH TIGER 800 ABS, $11,000. The reborn Triumph motorcycle company has risen to the same legendary status as its progenitor did half a century 

ago by offering stylishly different takes on its competitors machines, and the Tiger 800 ABS continues the tradition with a three-cylinder engine in place of the twin more common in this displacement range, and a minimalist approach to bodywork. The hardware is all there for adventures anywhere on earth: fuel injection (contributing to 93 horsepower), a six-speed transmission, a twin-tube trellis frame, twin-piston calipers on the dual floating front disc brakes, adjustable seat height, and much more. Triumph at  SunandFunMotorsports (an Overland Expo partner)

 

ALL-TERRAIN WARRIOR BRAVO ($TBA). Shipping-container houses are becoming popular among the alternate lifestyle crowd. Well, here’s a four-wheel-drive house/expedition machine that will fit inside a shipping container for extra-continental adventures. The All-Terrain Warriors Bravo pops its rigid roof to reveal a complete living area (and an out-of-the-mud porch) for a luxurious campsite anywhere on the planet. When you’re ready to move, fire up the fuel-efficient Mitsubishi turbodiesel—with 63 gallons of fuel on board (and 80 gallons of water) you can cover a lot of the planet at a go. All-Terrain Warriors USA

 
The perfect gift: Overland Expo 2014. Give the gift of 300+ session-hours of classes, programs, demos, discussions, and films; shopping close to 200 exhibitors of adventure gear and services; and meeting thousands of like-minded adventurers. Still a bargain at $270 (single), $485 (double) 

CLICK HERE for details.

 
Contact us to arrange a GIFT CERTIFICATE or

our new OVERLAND BUCKS—JUST FOR SPENDING ON GEAR AT OVERLAND EXPO!

 

The Land Rover conundrum - solved.

 

They’re not unreliable. They’re simply co-dependent.

I arrived at this conclusion in a single flash of realization after driving Land Rovers many thousands of miles in East Africa, and putting in equal time in Land Cruisers on many of the same routes. Unlike the passionately monogamous fans of either vehicle, I love them both and see their individual strengths and weaknesses with what I feel is a nearly complete lack of prejudice. 

The 70-Series Troopie is the undisputed king of load-hauling, its cavernous cargo area capable of swallowing a scandalous mountain of kit if the third row seat is removed (remove the second row and it could double as a hangar). The running gear is mightily overbuilt, and the naturally aspirated, six-cylinder 1HZ diesel engine—still the powerplant of choice in Africa—provides all the lazy momentum one needs and will seemingly run forever, while remaining simple to service (unlike its powerful but much more complex twin-turbo V8 descendant). With a factory rear locker the Troopie will conquer any obstacle one is likely to encounter on safari, and with 180 liters of fuel in the stock tanks it has country-crossing range. The Troopie’s biggest disadvantage is its stiff suspension, even with the move to front coils and longer rear leafs in 1999. Parts, on the rare occasions you need them, are also extremely expensive, at least in East Africa.

The Defender soundly trumps the Land Cruiser in ride comfort—more of an advantage than you’d think if you haven’t done 300 miles of Tanzanian B-roads in one day. The Defenders we normally use are further enhanced with TJM coils and the superb Koni Raid shock absorbers, and are simply unflappable in any conditions and under any load. The 300Tdi—like Toyota’s 1HZ since supplanted but still the favorite of bush mechanics—is a good old plodder and provides excellent fuel economy. And—again not to be underestimated—the squared-off internal configuration of the Defender makes it a perfect blank canvas for installing all sorts of platforms and cargo barriers, which allow packing more equipment than mere measurements would indicate. The ubiquitous Wolf Pack boxes slot in particularly well.

That boxy Defender shape is efficient. It holds all this.

Downsides? The Defender retains the driving compartment dimensions of its earliest progenitors, designed when the average Englishman was probably not much taller than his more famous compatriot Thomas Edward Lawrence, whose height was variously pegged between five-four and five-six. Legroom is only adequate even for my five-nine frame, and all proper Defender owners can point proudly to the calluses on their outside elbows where they repeatedly slam into the door during normal operation of the steering wheel. It doesn’t help that Defender “seats” should always be described inside quotation marks.

Land Rover: Comfortable ride, but watch that right elbow.

Then there’s the reliability thing.

First let’s bin the snide dismissals of Land Cruiser disciples who’ve never driven, much less owned, a Land Rover yet claim personal encyclopedic statistics of fault-ridden Defenders. We can also dismiss those amusingly irrational Defender defenders unwilling to admit any flaws in their cherished British steeds. One fellow I know whose Land Rover blew a differential on a cross-Africa trip categorically refused to call it a breakdown because, as he insisted, “Differentials are maintenance items.” Okaaaay . . .

Troopie: Cavernous, but an inferior suspension.

Nevertheless. On a purely personal—and, admittedly, too-small-to-be statistically-significant— level, out of three major trips on which I’ve driven Defender 110s, I’ve experienced a notable mechanical fault on . . . three trips. During the first, the vehicle we drove would sporadically and completely unpredictably simply . . . stop running. The engine would die and the starter would turn healthily but futilely. Yet, oddly, after a nap of ten minutes or so (discovered completely by accident the first time), it would start right up again and run perfectly. As yet unfamiliar with the vagaries of the 300Tdi, I quickly learned about part #RTC6702, the fuel cutoff solenoid. Apparently, when this part is nearing the end of its life the electromagnet inside will randomly lose connectivity and cut off the fuel supply, only to randomly reconnect after a brief hiatus. It’s a ten-minute replacement job once you know about it.

On the second trip, with a group of ConserVentures volunteers and a pair of Defenders, we faced the challenge of ascending the Nguruman Escarpment—the 2,000-foot west wall of the Rift Valley—via a private, little-used, and in places very steep track. Shortly into the climb, it became obvious I had virtually zero traction in the 110 I was driving. The center diff lock was not operating—and when the center diff lock on a full-time-four-wheel-drive vehicle is not operating, you have a one-wheel-drive vehicle. We were rescued by none other than Philip Leakey of the anthropologist clan, who towed me (with his beat-up 80-Series Land Cruiser) 15 kilometers to his property halfway up the escarpment, after which Roseann towed me the rest of the way in her 110. 

In a twist of irony, the next trip resulted in the exact opposite problem. To access the farm of some friends down a muddy and slick road, I engaged the center diff lock to ensure traction to both axles. When we left and hit tarmac again a few days later, I moved the lever back to the right to disengage it. The next hundred kilometers went smoothly, but then, as I had to negotiate a tight roundabout and was admiring a brand new Kenya Wildlife Service Land Cruiser pickup, I heard and felt the squeal of tires protesting at being forced to turn at different speeds—the diff lock was still engaged. I climbed under the 110 with a flashlight and quickly found the problem: The lever that engages the lock had popped out of its arm. Repair took a couple of minutes.

Lever (right arrow) fits into arm (left arrow)

And then it hit me. At the exact moment the trouble had manifested itself, I had been experiencing, as Jimmy Carter once put it, “lust in my heart” for that spanky new Land Cruiser. Could it be . . . ?

I lay there and thought back to other situations. East Africa is rich with lustable (to coin a word) expedition vehicles. On the previous trip, the day before we were to climb the escarpment we stayed in a research camp run by the local Maasai community. I distinctly remembered a German couple who had visited in a well-kitted turbodiesel Toyota Hilux, which I had inspected approvingly—while the Land Rover in which I was shortly to be immobilized stood by silently. Broodingly . . .

And the trip before that? I had stopped by the Toyota dealer in Nairobi and picked up a couple of brochures, which I casually and heedlessly stored in the center console of the Land Rover. 

The more I thought about it, the more suspicious parallels I found. The beat-up Series III 88 I’d brought home a few years ago to a house already occupied by two Land Cruisers, and whose rear prop shaft had blown a U-joint two days later? Of course . . .

Lying under the 110 with its diff lock now free, I mused on what Land Rover disciples frequently point out as the salient difference between their vehicles and Japanese pretenders: the so-called “personality” factor. Land Rovers, it’s argued, have it, while Land Cruisers, however competent and reliable, are simply appliances with no more soul than a refrigerator. I’d always viewed this idea dubiously—now I wasn’t so sure. Land Rovers, it appeared, did have personality, and that personality included the clairvoyant ability to detect the slightest hint of disloyalty, and to react in the most immediately petulant way possible. Nothing major, mind you; just a reminder of your interdependent relationship.

Come to think of it, it does sort of look like a tipped-over refrigerator . . .

An obvious experiment presented itself. We still had several hundred miles to drive before reaching Arusha, where we were to return the vehicle. I resolved to remain utterly faithful to Solihull products for the duration. As we drove south toward Namanga, whenever I spied a Land Cruiser or Hilux coming toward us I did the mental equivalent of closing my eyes, sticking my fingers in my ears, and repeating lalalalalalala to distract me from the approaching “appliance.” That worked for a while, but then I went active: At the first hint of a familiar approaching Japanese silhouette, I concentrated, envisioning instead a customized Defender 130 Crewcab with Michelin XZL tires, a Superwinch Husky, and a full Safety Devices roll cage. Or I imagined a completely restored 101 Forward Control equipped with a Bagnold sun compass. Or I pictured Sarah Batten, the lovely director of the Land Rover Experience training division (whoa, careful with the “lust in the heart” thing there, Jonathan).

Anyway, call it coincidence, but it worked. The 110 purred along happily through Kenya and into Tanzania, carried us down the long, brutal track to Lake Eyasi and back with what seemed like even more perfect suspension control than usual, and gave me the distinct impression that the needle on the fuel gauge was retreating at a slower pace than it had been. Was there a bit more get up and go in the 300Tdi on the road back past Ngorongoro? Whatever—I was convinced I had uncovered the secret to the “unreliable” Land Rover mystique.

We parked in front of the excellent Café Barista, in downtown Arusha, to get a cappuccino before returning the 110. As we came out I noticed a really nice Mercedes G-Wagen drive by—the bare-bones turbodiesel African version, not the leather-wrapped U.S. model. I would have given it a closer look, but the damned key was refusing to open the Land Rover’s door, and . . .  

Vintage pocket compass

I admit to a bit of an obsession with always being aware of cardinal directions—even in the briefest and most inconsequential of circumstances, such as while transiting between gates in a strange airport. I have a good sense of direction and can remain oriented through multiple turns in unfamiliar terrain (such as, for example, during a recent densely overcast day in downtown Brussels), but I need a base map in my head to start with, and I’m not deluded enough to think I can instinctively tell which way is north in such conditions. In fact, my first guess in Brussels was just about 180 degrees off—oops. 

Meet my friend, the pocket compass. It’s a WWII-vintage Wittnauer with a jeweled flat needle, a push-button lid and needle lock on its nickel case, and a ring in case I ever want to attach a fancy silver chain to it (in case I ever start wearing a waistcoat while traveling). There’s nothing elaborate about it—it pretty much points toward magnetic north, period. 

I know what many of you are thinking: An iPhone (or, I imagine, any smartphone) can do exactly the same thing with a free app. Technically, you’re right, but trust me, it’s not the same. 

First, I can deploy and check this compass in a couple of seconds, far more quickly than the slide-to-unlock and multiple-step sequence of the iPhone. Plus, if one employs the iPhone compass one appears to be just another dullard staring mindlessly at one’s iPhone. Flip open the Wittnauer on a foreign city street, and complete strangers (at least, those not staring at their iPhones) stop and inquire admiringly of it, then go on to offer detailed directions and/or tips on where to go and what to see. This happened to me on the supposedly aloof streets of New York City. Twice.

The Wittnauer company dates from 1890, when Albert Wittnauer immigrated to the U.S. from Switzerland and opened a watchmaking shop with his brothers. The U.S. Navy adopted the company’s precision timepieces for early aviation tests, and in 1941 (after merging with the Longines company in 1936) Wittnauer won a contract to produce pocket compasses for the military—mostly to be included in aircraft survival kits. I’ve yet to determine how many nearly identical compasses the company produced for that contract, but it must have been a zillion, because they’re still easy to find in perfect working order. Some are stamped “U.S.” on the outside of the case; others (mine included) are not—it seems random. You can buy decent examples for around $40, or spend $150 for a mint example in its original pouch and box. 

If that seems steep for a simple seven-decade-old instrument, just remember that your iPhone won’t be worth $40 in five years. If you’re like me, I’m willing to bet you’ll soon be loath to leave the house without that reassuring lump in your pocket.

An excellent source for pocket compass history is Kornelia Takacs's book Compass Chronicles. She also sells selected vintage pieces (including the superb example above) on her site, here.

Update on 2013-12-19 01:56 by Jonathan Hanson

Two correspondents have mentioned the exquisite Brunton Pocket transit. I'm lucky enough to own the vintage model once owned by my old scientific illustration professor:

It's bulky, but superbly accurate, and capable of measuring slip faces on dunes and a host of other angles. A true classic.