Light pollution can make navigation more difficult!
Making out navigation lights at sea can oftentimes be tough. We find that without the aid of AIS, we frequently need to get closer than we’d like to vessels underway to accurately make out their marks. When you’re near to shore though, with all of the additional light pollution, I feel that the difficulty is magnified tenfold!
Rebecca and I left the marina yesterday, and re-anchored outside of St. Georges. Although occasionally susceptible to an uncomfortable swell, we normally enjoy anchoring there. The water is clear, it’s convenient to get to shore, and we’re almost always rewarded with a beautiful over-the-water sunset.
As we sat on deck last night, enjoying a cocktail while looking for meteors (we saw none), I took note of the lights around me. Having the benefit of local knowledge, it was easy enough for me to make out what I was looking at. I wondered how easy it would be for those trying to make sense of their charts though, especially those mariners with no chart plotter, navigating solely with paper charts!
Can you make out these lights?
As a quiz, take a look at the images below. Can you tell what the two red lights are in the photograph? You’ll likely need to consult the screen capture of the chart below it to figure out the answer. To help, I put a red X in our approximate position.
High/Low range markers to line up on the recommended channel, and you are on the right of the line, steer to port to get back on the line.
Thanks for being the only one to play along. Yes, you are correct! 🙂
Flashing red and green traffic lights along the beach drive have always been a favorite of mine. Add to that lights that are blocked out by ferrys and larger ships. Sure, you can generally puzzle it out, but are you 100% certain? Are the jetties correctly plotted on GPS?
Specifically, I hate the Cold Spring entrance at Cape May at night.
Traffic lights would be tough. We don’t have many of those here, but there are one or two yahoos that have flashing red and green lights on their boats. Yes, seriously!
I appreciate the info and agree on light pollution but I couldn’t make out the range out from your picture.
The wife and I were camping out with our sailboat on an island on Lake George Aug 6-12 and after the moon set we saw about 2 meteors per hour. We could see the milky way pretty well after moon set as well. How well can you see the milky way on a clear night from off shore?
Offshore, on a clear moonless night, the stars are amazing. When the moon is near full though, as it is right now, the sky is surprisingly bright.
As for picking out the range in my photo, don’t worry. Without consulting the chart, it would be near impossible to make out the lights.