We awoke at 6:30 am to some serious down pouring, as my grandmother used to say it was "teaming buckets". My wife put on some coffee and I fired up some Dora DVD's for my daughter. This show is like crack to a 2.5 year old, eyes glued to it for 45 minutes straight. Gave us time to clean up and prepare for the day.
With virtually no winds predicted, and a thick Maine fog, the kind you can feel and cut with a knife, I sat at the chart table and plotted out a couple of scenarios. We we left the cove the visibility went from about 500 feet, to about 300, then to about 150-200. At these visibility ranges lobster pots appear from out of nowhere leaving you virtually no time to do anything but keep your eyes glued to both the water directly ahead of the bow and the radar. Of course my daughter wants to see what I'm doing and is very curious so it's tough keeping as focused as one needs to be in these situations. Surprisingly she thinks the fog horn is cool..
About three miles into our journey today the radar decided to call it quits. Normally I would leave my wife at the helm but she was on toddler duties so I stopped the boat all together, in lumpy & rolly seas, and went below to investigate. Sure enough one of my 30 year old, no longer made, can't get em even if you wanted to, circuit breakers was feeling a bit funky. I exercised it about 30 times and it performed for us the rest of the day with no issues. A new panel just moved to the top of this winters projects..
I finally got the radar back on and no sooner than I did picked up a target. The target was spotty at best and could have easily been mistaken for a lobster pot. It was returning on every second or third sweep only but definitely moving and closing. Even when this 32 something foot sailboat from MA passed within 150 feet the radar return was next still to nothing and spotty. For some reason this boat was stealth, for real. Just minutes before I had been picking up a lobster boat, could hear and smell it but not see it, and the return was a big as a large bell bouy. Most all working lobstermen carry reflectors permanently mounted on their boats so I can only assume this fish stench guy had one too.
The sailboat from MA had no radar reflector at all and also did not have radar. Trying to be a good citizen I made numerous attempts to hail them on VHF 16 & 9 but got no response. I let them know, on VHF 16, that they was showing up very poorly and if he had a reflector he might want to hoist it. Still I got no response. I'm hoping he heard me and just had a TX issue with his VHF? No horn signals, no VHF transmissions, no radar and no reflector oh and no running or steaming lights, in 150-200 foot vis..? I am always surprised at the risks people take without even realizing they are at risk?
Below is one of only three boats we saw in our time in the fog today. All the others were picked up on radar only. Late this afternoon it finally cleared and we had a nice sunset with some cool sky colors..
If I had to guess I'd say this guy was about 125 feet from us. We both saw each other on radar well ahead of time but these guys zig and zag so we kept crossing paths because I could not see where his next pull was . He pointed in the direction of his next haul and I made a bee line around him.
Gotta love the name on a day like today..
With virtually no winds predicted, and a thick Maine fog, the kind you can feel and cut with a knife, I sat at the chart table and plotted out a couple of scenarios. We we left the cove the visibility went from about 500 feet, to about 300, then to about 150-200. At these visibility ranges lobster pots appear from out of nowhere leaving you virtually no time to do anything but keep your eyes glued to both the water directly ahead of the bow and the radar. Of course my daughter wants to see what I'm doing and is very curious so it's tough keeping as focused as one needs to be in these situations. Surprisingly she thinks the fog horn is cool..
About three miles into our journey today the radar decided to call it quits. Normally I would leave my wife at the helm but she was on toddler duties so I stopped the boat all together, in lumpy & rolly seas, and went below to investigate. Sure enough one of my 30 year old, no longer made, can't get em even if you wanted to, circuit breakers was feeling a bit funky. I exercised it about 30 times and it performed for us the rest of the day with no issues. A new panel just moved to the top of this winters projects..
I finally got the radar back on and no sooner than I did picked up a target. The target was spotty at best and could have easily been mistaken for a lobster pot. It was returning on every second or third sweep only but definitely moving and closing. Even when this 32 something foot sailboat from MA passed within 150 feet the radar return was next still to nothing and spotty. For some reason this boat was stealth, for real. Just minutes before I had been picking up a lobster boat, could hear and smell it but not see it, and the return was a big as a large bell bouy. Most all working lobstermen carry reflectors permanently mounted on their boats so I can only assume this fish stench guy had one too.
The sailboat from MA had no radar reflector at all and also did not have radar. Trying to be a good citizen I made numerous attempts to hail them on VHF 16 & 9 but got no response. I let them know, on VHF 16, that they was showing up very poorly and if he had a reflector he might want to hoist it. Still I got no response. I'm hoping he heard me and just had a TX issue with his VHF? No horn signals, no VHF transmissions, no radar and no reflector oh and no running or steaming lights, in 150-200 foot vis..? I am always surprised at the risks people take without even realizing they are at risk?
Below is one of only three boats we saw in our time in the fog today. All the others were picked up on radar only. Late this afternoon it finally cleared and we had a nice sunset with some cool sky colors..
If I had to guess I'd say this guy was about 125 feet from us. We both saw each other on radar well ahead of time but these guys zig and zag so we kept crossing paths because I could not see where his next pull was . He pointed in the direction of his next haul and I made a bee line around him.
Gotta love the name on a day like today..
