Securite, securite, securite . . .

Vessel Chesapeake Bay Magazine here. Change to channel 68 for an important refresher course in using your VHF marine radio. Out.

Good, glad you could make it. We’re going to keep this short, because no conversation, even on a working channel should last more than five minutes. And we’ll stick to the subject (as difficult as it is for us to do that) because extraneous information—like a debate whether we’re going to meet at the Cryogenic Crustacean or the Sandy Panda for dinner—is not allowed either. That’s what cellphones are for. So with that in mind, we’re going to make some sound-bite-type categories to help us run through some important information. Keep your ears on (Blaaaat, CB lingo is a total no-no!), we’re pretty sure we’re all going to learn something.

Who needs to carry a VHF radio?

The short answer is everyone. You’d have to be pretty cuckoo to go out without one, and we’re not going to waste the airspace stating the obvious reasons why. Just think tornado warning or a floating refrigerator off flashing red “4”. Enough said. But what you might not know is that you are not required to carry one if your recreational vessel is under 20 meters (65.62 feet). Surprise.

Do you have to use your radio?

No. You don’t have to turn your radio on. But see cuckoo above. However, if you do turn it on, you must monitor either channel 16 or channel 9. And even though channel 9 is the name of a monthly CBM feature and is now the preferred station for hailing other boats, you’d be cuckoo not to choose channel 16, which is where all the action is, information and emergency-wise. Many radios can now be set to monitor two or three stations at once, so this would be a good choice.

What if I want to do a radio check?

Fine, but absolutely positively don’t do it on channel 16. It’s against the rules and it annoys everyone, particularly the Coast Guard, and you’d be cuckoo to annoy people with big boats, guns and heavy fines. Sorry, we got carried away. Okay, here are two good methods: The best and easiest is to dial in your local channel for Sea Tow’s automated radio check. For the station nearest you, check Sea Tow’s map at www.seatow/boating-safety. The next best thing is to switch to a working channel, such as channel 68, and listen for a vessel name. Then hail that vessel and ask for a radio check.

What if I want to hail another vessel?

This one you can do on channel 16. (Channel 9 is preferred, but let’s be realistic. Unless you’ve arranged to do that beforehand, your friend is much more likely to be on channel 16.) The key here is to be brief. Very brief. The fewer words the better. We’ve already used too many just saying this. Which brings up a subquestion: Do you have to say the boat name you’re hailing three times? No! And don’t believe anything you read to the contrary. (You can check your Chapman’s. The exception to this is an emergency call, like Mayday.) As long as the reception is clear, even one time is sufficient. Twice is a good compromise. It should go something like this: “Sarsaparilla, Sarsaparilla, this is Lazy Dog, over.” “Lazy Dog, (this is) Sarsaparilla, over.” “Sarsaparilla, switch (to) six-eight.” “Sarsaparilla switching six-eight, out.” That’s it.

What if the other vessel doesn’t answer?

We’re so glad you asked. The answer is: Don’t keep calling! We’d repeat that ten times, but we don’t want to hog the airwaves. Here is the correct procedure, and if we could make the penalty for breaking these rules five years of scraping the bottom of the Titanic, we would—we are very cranky about this. If Sarsaparilla doesn’t answer your hail, you must wait two minutes before trying again. If after three tries, Sarsaparilla still doesn’t answer, you must wait fifteen minutes before trying again. (All right, all right . . . you can reduce that to three minutes, if absolutely no one else is using channel 16.) And one more thing, switch the radio to low-watt to make the hail, so you don’t interfere with transmissions miles away.

How do you know which channel to switch to?

Every channel has its work assignment, like channel 16 and 9. Channel 13 is generally big ship to big ship and the hailing channel for bridge openings. If you want to know which way Nave Humongous is going to turn north of the Bay Bridge, trying hailing it on channel 13. Channel 22A is the Coast Guard’s working channel and where they’ll send you to hear navigation information like live-ammunition firing. Channels 67, 68, 69, 71, 72, and 78a are reserved for us recreational boaters, so take your pick.

Wait, there's more!

How do I call in emergencies? What if I hear a Mayday call and no one else answers? How do I set up my radio for Digital Selective Calling (DSC)?

Yes, we’re not done quite yet. But there is a high-speed inflatable with a blue strobe light that just pulled up, so we’ll have to get back to you on all of that next month. Meanwhile, vessel Chesapeake Bay Magazine out.

Cruisers Quiz Winner

We jumped the gun a bit last month. After announcing the winner of the previous month’s contest, we received another ten or so entries. Oops. So this time we’re going to give everyone a chance to win a coveted CBM tote bag We’ll announce April’s winner in June.

The Zen and the Art of Coincidence

Many of us have boats that have already lived a couple of lives and survived more than a few adventures before they came into our wise and caring possession. For the most part, these are past glories (or the obverse) are lost to us. In some cases though we do know and wish we didn’t. Take CBM editor Jody Argo Schroath’s boat Moment of Zen, for example. When she was looking Zen over before making the offer, the soon-to-be FO (former owner) explained that he himself had found her sitting up on the hard in North Carolina. There she had sat, lonely (our anthropomorphism, not his) and unloved for more than two years. The story was, he said, that the owners, having equipped her for a life cruising the Caribbean, sail from Baltimore to begin their big adventure, only to break it five days into the trip when they landed in Orient. We can only speculate what happened during those five days, but the result was that the husband jumped ashore as they came to the dock, and walked off, shouting that he would never set foot on another boat as long as he lived or never ever speak to his wife again. Sure, there are a hundred stories like that out there, and some of them may even be true. Of course, the same thing happens after we sell a boat: We simply say good-by and wish her well. We rarely know what adventures she will see.

And that brings us neatly to the pretty interesting story of Bruce Haulman and the Herbert R. O’Conor. When Bruce was a young‘un, growing up in Washington D.C., back in the late 1940s and early 1950s, he loved going to visit his relatives in New Jersey, largely because of the wonderful ferryboat ride that was required to get across the Chesapeake Bay, leaving from Sandy Point and arriving in Kent Island. The pretty interesting part is that half a century later, when he was all grown up and living in Washington State, Bruce would take the very the same ferryboat every day from his home on Vashon-Maury Island to his work at Port Defiance on the mainland. What happened was this: The last two ferries in operation before the Chesapeake Bay Bridge opened were the Herbert R. O’Conor and the Harry W. Nice, both built in 1947. When the ferry service closed in 1952, six months after the opening of the bridge, the two pretty new ferries were bought by the Washington State Ferries company. The pair were towed through the Panama Canal to Washington, painted green and white, renamed the Rhododendron (Rhody, to its friends) and the Olympic, respectively, and put into service. The Rhody ended her days on the Vashon-Defiance route, where Bruce and the old Chesapeake ferry reunited. And as he rode in the shadow of Mount Rainier, he would think of the crab boats of the Chesapeake. Bruce wrote about all this in 2012 for the Vashon-Maury Island Beachcomber. Go to our website for a Quick Link. The Rhody was retired finally from ferry service in 2012. but that’s not the end of her story. Earlier this year, she was purchased by the Atlantic Capes Fisheries Inc. to be used as a support vessel for its scallop aquaculture around Vancouver, B.C. Who knows what adventures await?

The Sound of One Hand Clapping

Now here is an issue that, frankly, we wish we hadn’t brought up in the first place: sound signals. It seems that we are constitutionally unable to get this one just right. After being corrected last month about the signal in fog for boats under sail and those engaged in fishing, we have now been further corrected and taken to task generally for our ineptitude. We shuffle, sigh and avert our eyes . . . and we reprint the pertinent part of the email we received from Ed Narizzano, USCG Lic. Master. Then we will leave the subject forever.

First, Mr. Narizanno admonishes us for not correcting the March issue’s fog story of the vessel beset by fog between the Patapsco River and Worton Creek. “Subject vessel was under power . . . so the correct signal in fog is one prolonged blast every two minutes, not every five minutes. The distance traveled in the additional three minutes could be disastrous,” he writes.

He continues: “For clarification, the proper signals for most of your readerships' type of vessels is below. Note that by definition a vessel engaged in fishing does not apply to vessels fishing with rod and reel, but a vessel restricted due to fishing gear such as nets or other heavy gear (trolling umbrella lures does not count!).

Power-driven vessel making way: one prolonged blast every two minutes.

Power-driven vessel not making way (stopped): two prolonged blast every two minutes with a one second interval between them.

Sailing vessel, vessel not under command, vessel restricted in ability to maneuver, vessel constrained by draft, vessel engaged in fishing and a vessel towing or pushing another vessel: one prolonged blast followed by two short blasts every two minutes.

A Round of Applause

Congratulations to John Temple of Midlothian, Va., the winner of February’s Cruisers Quiz! His name was drawn at random from all the correct answers we received. The world’s largest artificial reef was created by the sinking of the old aircraft carrier USS Orinsky off of Pensacola, Fla., in the Gulf of Mexico.

Artificial Reefs: Jumble Sales of the Sea

Rock, Paper, Battleship

Imagine if you will, some Star Trek scuba diver exploring the coastal waters off Assateague Island, Md., where schooling fish below and flocking seabirds above have attracted the attention of a World Federation research vessel.

“Holy lost civilization!” he will shout into his Bluetooth intercom to the ship hovering above. “There must be nearly 50 armored personnel carriers down here and about a New York City hundred subway cars!”

Later, he and his colleagues will posit an apocalyptic scenario involving a large irradiated Asian turtle named Gamera. What they won’t know is that it was once common practice to repurpose obsolete or worn-out metal objects by dumping them in a heap in the water to attract fish for fishermen and to give divers something interesting to look at. Our space-age diver had, in fact, come across the Blackfish Bank Reef, located 5.8 miles southeast of Assateague Beach in about 65 feet of water. Twenty miles south, our diver would have been equally baffled by Parramore Reef, the repository of two Liberty ships, a 90 foot barge, an 85-foot trawler, an unspecified number of military vehicles, a hundred NYC subway cars, and—surrounding the center like some Druidic prayer circle—a ring of tires in concrete. Let Spock come up with a story explaining that one!

Artificial reefs have been around for several hundred years, the earliest one in this country perhaps off the coast of South Carolina, where logs from old huts were sunk to improve fishing in the mid-1800s. The idea of artificial reefs is to encourage the growth of marine life, which will in turn attract fish. As a consequence, over the years a lot of different things have been chucked into the water, including 2,000,000 used tires off Fort Lauderdale in the 1970s to create Osborne Reef. That one, as you can well imagine, did not end well, as storms tossed tires into other tires, damaging both the emerging reef and natural reefs located nearby. Over the years, restrictions for artificial reef materials have been tightened, but some scientists argue that old metals can contaminate food fish around the reefs. Other critics argue that the reefs make overfishing of certain species easier because of their concentration in an area known to everyone.

Reefing the Chesapeake

The Chesapeake Bay itself is peppered with artificial reefs, and more are being added. Most of these, however, have been constructed of concrete—such as surplus concrete pipe, rubble, old bridge sections and purpose-made reef balls. These last are often meant particularly for oyster and clam habitats. A few artificial reefs on the Bay, however, do contain old used things other than concrete. Point No Point reef, covering a whopping 1,059 acres, contains two large barges with a long row of bridge rubble from the old Woodrow Wilson Bridge laid in between. And the Tilghman Island reef is a veritable Mulligatawny stew of old ferryboat wreck, bridge decking, rubble, granite and concrete pipe.

How do you know where the artificial reefs are located? It’s pretty easy. The reefs, unless they are very new, are marked on the charts, so you can keep a lookout for them as you cruise. (Here's an example the Point No Point reef from n.v.-Charts.)

When you get to the reef, you’ll often find it marked with a yellow buoy. You can also go online and find the reef locations, with their coordinates and a brief description of depth, materials used, and, in the case of Maryland, the species of fish you might expect to find. For Virginia’s artificial reefs, including its coastal reefs, go to mrc.virginia.gov/reef_map/reef_map.shtm. For Maryland’s, see www.dnr.state.md.us/fisheries/reefs.

Tell Us a Reef Story

We’d like you to tell us about your experiences with artificial reefs on or off the Bay. Great fishing? Great birdwatching? Let us know. Send us your photos, too. Simply email us at CX@ChesapeakeBoating.net or click on the Comment button below.

Be-Fogged

Thanks to those of you who responded to our call for fog stories. We’ve chosen Ross Watson’s to share this month. Ross and his wife live in Newtown Square, Pa. 

Several years ago, at about 7 a.m., my wife and I left the Inner Harbor, Baltimore, and travelled down the Patapsco River, passing Fort McHenry and under the Key Bridge. It was a glorious day, cool and clear.

Our Bruno Stillman cruises at 14 knots, so we had plenty of time to reach our slip at the Wharf at Handy's Point (Worton Creek) and drive home to Pennsylvania for a business appointment.

The boat only draws 3.5 feet, so we use a compass course and mostly don't stay in the marked channel. We turned north and ran into the densest fog I've ever encountered, visibility 100 feet or less. There was nothing on NOAA radio about fog.

I always drive from the flying bridge, but our very primitive, pea-soup green radar is at the lower helm, so down we went, and my wife went forward. We rarely use our handheld GPS, but this time I turned it on and was able to set it and the radar at the same range, 3 miles.

We dutifully sounded our 5-second blasts every 5 minutes and proceeded at idle speed, about 5 knots. The only sound was our faithful Cat diesel, when out of nowhere a large tug and barge came right across our bow. He was doing at least 10 to12 knots, making no warning blasts, no further away than 50 yards. He never even saw us! He certainly would have sunk us. I called the Coast Guard, and their attitude seemed to be "Well, he missed you, didn't he?"

We finally picked up a numbered marker and used that to correct our course. We also carefully avoided the shipping channel, using our depth sounder and running in 10' of water. Our two-hour trip ended up being closer to five. As we entered Worton Creek, the fog completely cleared ahead of us, I looked aft, and it was as thick as ever, but only about 200 feet tall.

Pilots say, "Any landing you walk away from is a good one," so I guess this was a "good one."

On the subject of fog, we also received this figurative five-short-blast (danger) email from reader William Russell. And quite right he is.

Unless I totally misunderstand the scenario, I believe the sound signals for a fishing or sailing vessel under way in restricted visibility is a prolonged followed by two shorts, not the three short blasts you have listed. I believe that is the signal for propulsion astern.

Cruisers Quiz

Winner

Congratulations to Scott Massoni, who correctly answered the December/January question: On what one day will the Frederick Douglass Memorial Bridge in Washington, D.C. not open to boat traffic of any kind for any reason?  Answer: Inauguration Day. Scott will receive a splendid Chesapeake Bay Magazine tote bag.

March Quiz

1.    What is the world’s largest artificial reef?

Here’s your chance to win the coveted Chesapeake Bay Magazine tote bag for yourself. Send your answer to cx@ChesapeakeBoating.net.

Speaking of fog . . .

Here is a photo from Maryland pilot Bill Band, who writes: Thought you might like this fog photo of the container ship Ever Diadem (960' LOA) northbound at the Bay Bridges.

What’s That Sound?

We don’t use sound signals in recreational boating much anymore, which may be good for the peace and quiet of the world, but not so good when we really need them because we can’t remember for the life of us (so to speak)what they are. This not remembering thing was amply demonstrated at the fall boat shows in Annapolis, where we had the quiz available for those of you who stopped by the Chesapeake Bay Magazine booth to say hello. A lot of you started to take the quiz, then realized you didn’t know all the answers and gave it up. We should add that there were a lot of you who did know the answers. So, between the shows and the emails we received we ended up with a lot of correct entires to choose from, and we’ve drawn a name and are ready to announce the winner. He’s Jerry Evans of Severn, Md. Jerry keeps his boat, Dog House, on Rock Creek off the Patapsco River. He will receive our general congratulations as well as a swell CBM tote bag. Envious? It’s not too late to enter last month’s quiz (Which came first, the English settlement at St. Mary’s City or William Claiborne’s settlement on Kent Island?) and this month’s as well (see below).

Meanwhile, let’s get to the correct answers to the Cruisers Exchange quiz in the October issue of Chesapeake Bay Magazine, with a little extra institutional instruction thrown in as a bonus:

What are the sound signals for the following:

a. Danger: Five or more quick short blasts.
b. You want to pass a head-on vessel port to port: One short blast. If you want to pass starboard to starboard, you would give two short blasts. The other vessel should respond with the same signal to indicate that they understood and agree to do that. If not, they should sound the danger signal, five or more short blasts.
c. You are backing your vessel out of the slip: One prolonged blast (defined as lasting four to six seconds—an ear-splitting amount of time if you are the one doing the blasting) to indicate you are getting under way, plus three short blasts to indicate that you are operating a vessel in reverse.

Let’s continue our conversation on sound signals. The prevalence of VHF radios aboard vessels has eliminated the need for sound signals in a lot of circumstances, because we can now hail the boat on the radio and make our intentions known rather than blasting away on the horn. But that doesn’t always work—perhaps because the other captain is listening to “Son of a Sailor” instead of channel 16 (which, we admit, can get a little tedious on a sweet summer day, because 80 percent of the airtime seems to be taken up with the same two boats trying unsuccessfully to hail each other and the other 20 percent by the Coast Guard broadcasting in an obscure Balkan dialect). So then sound signals are the sure way to get your message through the Jimmy Buffet. This is particularly useful when you and another boat are coming toward each other and you want to be sure that you both agree on which side you will pass. (For the answer to that, see b. above). A second common instance would occur when you want to overtake another vessel in a fairly narrow channel. (All of you who have traveled the Intracoastal Waterway will have come across this.) Here’s the way the Coast Guard puts it in Rule 34: One short blast means “I intend to pass you on your starboard side.” Two short blasts mean “I intend to pass you on your port side.” The overtaken vessel should answer with the same signal if they agree, or five short blasts if they don’t.

There is one situation where sound signals never go out of style: in fog or other varieties of reduced visibility. Cruising the Chesapeake may be a far cry from boating along the fog-bound coast of New England, but we’d hazard a guess that you’ve all been there. You leave your creek or inlet to find the broad waters of the Bay socked in tight. In the photo on this page, our peregrinating editor Jody was on her way up the ICW last December, just out of Fernandina Beach, Fla., on the way north (we know, wrong way) when her boat Zen was suddenly surrounded by a great fog bank that hunkered down over the warm water. Two of the crew went forward to watch and sound the horn, while the third stayed at the helm. Does everyone remember the signals for fog? One prolonged blast (four to six seconds) at least every two minutes, if you are making way under power; two prolonged blasts, if you are under way (running the engine), but not making way. If you are fishing, sailing or at anchor, the signal is three short blasts. It’s a deafening job, so the interval between signals is to give your ears a chance to stop ringing so you can hear anyone else sounding in the fog—seriously, you can look it up.

Got any stories about fog and/or sound signals? Click on Comment and let us hear from you.

Navigating the Apps

This month in our Cruisers Exchange we’re going to wrestle a bit with the complicated issue of marine navigation programs for smartphones and tablets. This is something that we here in Chesapeake Bay Magazine’s editorial dry dock have been kicking around for some time. Two years ago, we decided to put the talk into action. Armed with fully charged smartphones, we took to the water to see whether we could draw any conclusions. We set waypoints from Annapolis harbor into Mill Creek on several of the apps on our phones and set off. While one of us drove, the other two stood hunched over our phones, pinching the screens in and out and muttering to ourselves. After three trips back and forth, we were unanimous in our choice. Satisfied, we returned to our desks brimming with resolve and strongly held opinions . . . and immediately got wrapped up in other things. So the issue lay around gathering barnacles. Meanwhile, new apps came on the market, which needed testing before we made any bold proclamations. More time passed. As we traveled, though, we continued to use and test the various navigation apps. And now here we are with the Cruisers Exchange, a forum invented as a platform for debatable personal opinion.

The big news is that even after our long gestation period on this subject—and hundreds of hours of cruising—our initial findings still stand. For us, the best all around navigation app, hands down, is Navionics. The app is available for both smartphone and tablet and is equally workable on both. Navionics uses its own vector charts (as do several other apps). What sets these apart is that they have plenty of information, plenty of sounding numbers and—crucially important—they are clear and easy to read on a screen the size of a cell phone or on a tablet set the same distance away from the helm as the chartplotter. The numbers, route and depth contours, are all clear and easy to read at a glance. The charts zoom in and out without a delay to redraw. The chart package (U.S. East), which is purchased with the app (unlike some others) is resident on the phone or tablet, so you don’t suddenly find yourself having to download the charts because you forgot to do so ahead of time or you end up somewhere you hadn’t initially intended.

In addition, you can use the Navionics app to set a long-distance course on the fly—Mobjack Bay to Rock Hall, for example—a task nearly impossible on any other app and many chartplotters in our experience. When zoomed out to take in the whole route, Navionics charts maintain their sharp detail of land and water features, while the others blank out into primitive block forms, useless for setting a course. We know this from experience because we’ve traveled the length of the Chesapeake while watching the course line on our phone and leaving the short-distance view to the chartplotter.
But wait, there’s more. Navionics’s user interface is more intuitive than most apps, allowing you to set waypoints, measure distances and change the settings with the tap of a button.
But with all that said, the true test is which app you go to when you really want that information and you want it right away. For all of us here—and for a lot of the racers and cruisers we’ve talked to, the answer is the Navionics app.

After this long paean to Navionics, you might be thinking, “Well, then, why bother loading any other app?” Well, okay, it’s not perfect. There are other apps that do some things better. For example, although Navionics does have little marina icons, the information is incomplete and sometimes simply inaccurate, especially on the question of transient berths. The Navionics default answer is “no.” Further, Navionics has made an effort to make extra information, like magazine articles, available, but these generally need to be downloaded. Awkward when you need the information now. That’s why we often turn to navigation apps that incorporate Active Captain, a treasure-trove of user information.

It won’t replace CBM’s Guide to Cruising Chesapeake Bay, of course, but Active Captain is a great quick source of information on marinas and anchorages. Unfortunately, none of the apps with this feature is up to the standard of the Navionics app—though one of the most recent, SailTimer, has several things going for it. The feel of its NOAA charts is clean, but the search under Options yields only: Charts, Track and Tell a Friend. (Maybe we’re missing something, but when we are boating and need to navigate, stopping to “tell a friend” is very low on our list of priorities.) The charts options are NOAA, aerial photos and something called World Road Maps. The advantage of having a satellite map option is to get a good look at a marina layout or an anchorage site. Navionics misses the boat here by having the satellite overlay only to the water’s edge, thereby blotting out docks and other useful information. One drawback with SailTimer is that if you zoom in on the NOAA chart it changes to the road map. Not good. The real purpose of SailTimer, though is to give sailors the best route and tacking time based on entered information such as wind speed, direction and destination. We haven’t tried this feature yet, so we’ll get back to you on that.

Meanwhile, here’s our quick run-down on a couple of other apps.

• iNavX: This is the granddaddy of navigation apps for macs. On the good side, it uses charts you download yourself from NOAA. The app has a nifty satellite view on the tablet version—tap on the screen and a window pops up with the same zoomable view in satellite; tap again and it goes away. User interface is fairly easy, with commands along the bottom, including access to the guide. (Why do so few apps have the user guide easily available?) On the bad side, the charts are not seamless, so you have to choose the next one from a list that is not always intuitive and not always what your looking for. This can be a big pain. But the platform is stable, the charts are sharp (NOAA charts fuzz out on a lot of apps when you zoom in tight). It’s a good option for NOAA charts.

• Jeppesen’s Plan2Nav: We find this venerable flight-chart maker’s marine app sadly lacking in a number of areas. The vector charts, which are their own, are a nice bright blue and ochre and very clean-looking. But too clean. They lack all but the most basic information—creek names are about all you get, and those are hard to read because they’re in an outline font. The depth numbers are nice and easy to read, but not plentiful and they disappear entirely as soon as you zoom out at all. There is also a disconcerting tilt feature that doesn’t seem to serve any purpose. The user guide is nowhere to be found, and the app crashes frequently. Enough said. Jeppesen’s a well-established company, though, so it’s likely that many of these issues will be fixed in the future.

• As for some of the alternatives, such as Polar Navy, Marine US, Earth NC and Fly To Maps, we confess that they tend to run together. Not that they are all alike. Not at all though most of them use NOAA charts with their own markers added in some cases. This oddly is where they get in trouble, generally by making the markers too big so that it clutters the screen and hides valuable information. Fly To Maps errs by not having enough information. We really don't find it suitable to navigation, except in the most basic sense.

Here are iPad screen shots from those four apps.

Earth NC:

Polar Navy:

Marine US (GeoGarage):

Fly To Chesapeake:

 As illuminating as screen shots may be they tell only a small (though important) part of the story. Equally important are how easy it is to zoom in and out and move to other parts of the Bay. Some of these (like Polar Navy) take some time—sometimes many seconds) to load each time the view is changed in any way. Some are cranky about moving at all. And some give adequate readable information only on close up view. Some are just nice (like Marine US), but with nothing to make you come back on a regular basis.

As you have no doubt noticed, none of this discussion deals with trip-planning, like setting waypoints, setting a track and so forth. The short answer is that we'll get to that. Meanwhile, let us know what navigation apps you use and how you use them.

Thar she blows!

Welcome to the first Cruisers Exchange posting. In the October issue of Chesapeake Bay Magazine, we introduced the Cruisers Exchange to our readers and opened the discussion with some of the editors' favorite weather sites and smartphone apps for cruising the Bay. We thought we'd rehash that briefly by giving you links to those sites that are on the internet. The apps you will find on the app store used by your particular brand of smartphone. (We have a slight Apple bias here, simply because we all use Macs in the office and, as it happens, we all currently have iPhones. But most of these apps are generally available.) Along with those, we've added a few more sites and apps we didn't have room for in the column. After that, it's your turn to pick up the ball and carry it along by sharing your favorite marine weather sites and apps. If you use some of the same sources, let us know that too. If you disagree with our choices, feel free to sound off. In other words, we welcome/encourage/entreat all contributions. Not to put too fine a point on it, that's why we called all of this the Cruisers Exchange. After all, the more information we have the better off we are. Agreed? Okay, enough said. Now let's get to business.

Here are the most commonly used weather websites:

• Weather Channel's weather.com
For marine weather, choose Lifestyle, then Sports & Recreation and finally Beach & Boating.

• Weather Underground's wunderground.com
Under wunderground's Travel & Activities button, you'll find two options for marine weather—Sailing & Boating and Marine & Boating.

• Accuweather's accuweather.com
No real marine weather forecasting here. A fishing forecast of sorts and a beach forecast are about as close as you can come.

-->  • Crown Weather at crownweather.com
This one didn’t make it into the magazine, but is one of Jody’s favorite sites, especially when storms are predicted. By simply scrolling down through the dozens of maps, you get a good feel for weather trends about 60 hours out. There are NOAA, Unisys and other national and regional maps with information on everything from precipitation predictions to three or four levels of millibar readings, infrared and satellite radar maps, water vapor and forecast maps Incidentally, this is also a particularly good winter-weather site.

Here are a few of our favorite marine forecasting sites:

•  Windfinder.com
We find this quick and easy to read with its bar graphs and pictographs and easy to scan forecast for wind, temperature and rain probability, as well as near-time wind readings.

• Sailflow.com and FishWeather.com
These are variations of the same site, both with good, easy to read information, with near-time reports from NOAA buoys for wind, temperature and barometric pressure. Also both give good animated maps.

• Passageweather.com

This one is more for off-shore marine information, with wind, visibility and offshore wave forecasts.

Then there are the NOAA weather sites, as confusing as they are comprehensive. Here are a few that work for us. There are many more ripe for discovery by the intrepid.

• The Chesapeake Bay Operation Forecast System (CBOFS) at tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/ofs/cbofs/cbofs.html

This site gives you a straightforward map of the Bay with buoys. Click on one and you'll get graphs with a plot of recent and forecast winds, water levels, currents, water temperature and salinity. Scroll down and you'll find animations for the same categories of information.

• Physiographical Oceanic Real-Time System (PORTS) at tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/ports

Here you'll find real-time water levels for your location and several surrounding areas.

• Chesapeake Bay Interpretive Buoys System (CBIBS) at www.buoybay.noaa.gov
There are only a handful of these buoys, but they cover the Bay from top to bottom. Not only do they give real-time information on wind, temperature and pressure, but they also provide salinity and water quality numbers, as well as two of the crucial bits of information lacking on all the other sites: information on waves—their height, direction and spacing; and how likely it is that you'll encounter nettles in the area of the buoy. Now that's a smart buoy!

Finally, it's time to mention a few smartphone/tablet apps we use for marine forecasting:

• MyRadarPro
This is our favorite radar app. You can zoom in and out, from tiny Tippidy Witchit Island on the St. Marys River, to the big picture, coast to coast.

• Intellicast Boating
This comes from Weather Underground and the Weather Channel. We're still playing with its capabilities, but it looks as if it will be useful after a few addtional fixes.

• SmartBuoys
This is the app from the CBIBS folks (see above). A must-have . . . and it's free!

• ChronGlobal
This one didn't make the magazine, but it makes our list of favorite smartphone/pad apps. Once you work out how it works, it's a terrific way of seeing at a single glance what time it is, where you are in the tide cycle, and where you are in the moon cycle (which affects the tides, of course). In addition, the app automatically changes its tide location as you travel up or down the Bay, always finding the nearest station. Brilliant!

• AyeTides
One of the oldest and still one of the best.

• MarineWeather
We use this is as a quick way to get the marine forecast by section of the Bay, though it also does weather stations, tides and radar.

• MarineCast
This is SailFlow's app with lots of the same information as the website.

• NOAA Weather Radio
There are a number of apps that channel NOAA's weather broadcasts from all over the country. This is one we're trying now.


Well, that's our overview of a crowded field of marine weather websites and apps we've been using. Now it's your turn. Let us know what you use before you go out, and what you use when you're out there. No need to register, simply click on the comment pencil. If you prefer, email us at Editors@CruisersExchange.com.

In the November issue of the magazine, we'll be tackling the question of navigation apps. See you then.