I bet there are geeks out there who head up their blog posts with "stardates" as in Star Trek. Ship's logs, flight logs. Log: the following from Merriam-Webster:

Etymology: Middle English logge, probably of Scandinavian origin; akin to Old Norse lAg fallen tree; akin to Old English licgan to lie -- more at LIE
1 : a usually bulky piece or length of unshaped timber; especially : a length of a tree trunk ready for sawing and over six feet (1.8 meters) long
2 : an apparatus for measuring the rate of a ship's motion through the water that consists of a block fastened to a line and run out from a reel
3 a : the record of the rate of a ship's speed or of her daily progress; also : the full nautical record of a ship's voyage b : the full record of a flight by an aircraft
4 : a record of performance, events, or day-to-day activities log>

I believe definition number two is roughly the source of "knots" as a measure of a water-vessel's speed, as they would knot a rope at regular intervals and count how many (per unit of time) were reeled out into the water as the ship made way.

Doesn't capture direction though...at least not as far as this landlubber can tell.