This is a post to the night illumination thread. I agree that you do not want to have too much illumination at night when paddling. This is an experience of mine that proved the point to me. The darkest night paddle I have ever been on is when Bill Newman and I were on a sixty mile crossing from Stanard Rock Lighthouse to Caribou Island Lightstation on Lake Superior. When night came there was no cloud cover and we had no illumination from the moon. There was dense fog at water level and it rose up forty five degrees into the sky all around us. We had so little light that we could not even see the tops of waves. We broke out some lightsticks and placed them on our stern decks so that we could stay with each other. We found that we had to cover half of the four inch lightstick because the glare was too bright for us in such a low light environment. Good night paddling, Don Dimond *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List Submissions: paddlewise_at_lists.intelenet.net Subscriptions: paddlewise-request_at_lists.intelenet.net Website: http://www.gasp-seakayak.net/paddlewise/ ***************************************************************************
Gabriel L Romeu wrote: > > Bob Denton wrote: > > > > I tested my converted LED beacon up to 1/2 mile and I could probably get > > more! It's good for a week on 4 AAs. > > > > cya > > I am on 2 weeks now with 14,000 red led and 2 AAs following your design > Bob. may not be a great beacon being red, but it looks like an hot > ember in my fireplace. It would be good if these lights would be bright enough to be seen. I was talking to a friend who led a Halloween night circumnavigation of Manhattan. He said that he had to change batteries on the lights of some of the boats as much as three times during the trip as they either gave out or dimmed to uselessness. He did have enough lights because later on a skipper of one cruise vessel came up to him to compliment him on having his group so well lighted and visible. That last point is the ultimate test. Whatever you do with the LEDs, test them at some distance with some friendly motorboater cooperating on length of visibility. ralph -- ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Ralph Diaz . . . Folding Kayaker newsletter PO Box 0754, New York, NY 10024 Tel: 212-724-5069; E-mail: rdiaz_at_ix.netcom.com "Where's your sea kayak?"----"It's in the bag." ----------------------------------------------------------------------- *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List Submissions: paddlewise_at_lists.intelenet.net Subscriptions: paddlewise-request_at_lists.intelenet.net Website: http://www.gasp-seakayak.net/paddlewise/ ***************************************************************************
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