Thanks for the offer Irv - however, I had my instructor demonstrate last night and after a while things started to make more sense. I almost like it now. There's lots still to cover in Nav though, so I'll probably take you up on the beer at some point...
My advice now would be to ignore Thom and the book that comes with the CRP-1 (they both confused the hell out of me) and get someone who knows how to use one to demonstrate. The books make it far more complicated than it actually is.