Tricks

Tricks
At Sea
December 30, 2005

The depth sounder started playing tricks on us when the depth got very
deep. We were crusing along at 450 feet deep water (150 meters) when
the low depth alarm came on signaling less than 7 feet. That woke me
up in a hurry. It stopped after a few seconds. The alarm came on again
and again. We thought that something must be swimming under us. I
turned off the depth sounder. An hour later I turned it on again in 500
feet of water. It alarmed, showing 3.5 feet for a few seconds, then
switched to 500 feet. I conclude that it is not a fish, it is the
result of a very weak echo return at the limits of the depth sounder's
range. The weak signal caused it to lock on to a false echo every once
in a while.

Our speed has slowed to 3 knots. That will get us to Lauderdale mid
morning. No need to heave to.

There are a lot of airplanes out here descending for the airports. West
Palm Beach and Fort Lauderdale. When their landing lights are pointed
directly at us, they are very strong. It looks like we're about to be
run over by the Titanic.

We've been less than five miles offshore since leaving Fort Pierce.
It's amazing how many people live along the Florida coast. Parts of it
look like a walled community with high rise apartment buildings forming
the wall. Anyhow, it makes navigation at night very easy. Just sail
parallel to the line of light.

The only significant traffic we saw out here were two gambling casinos
and a barge. The casinos go out past the three mile limit then sit
until their clients lose their money. The barge overtook us from
astern on a crossing course. In that situation it is extremely
difficult to estimate the true course of the barge. It looked to me
like he would run us over. I hailed him four times on channel 16 and
four times on 13. No reply. He reminded me of Crazy Ivan so I changed
our course 90 degrees to avoid him.