Shipping lanes.... Was once crossing a shipping lane in Casco Bay in moderate fog. Had prudently used marine radio to notify any inbound or outbound traffic of our presence, "Securite, securite, securite...." First half of the crossing was fine. We paused at the mid-channel marker and again checked, this time getting a response from a smaller craft alerting us to a merchant ship inbound that should be right about on top of us..... We heard the "hissssss" of the wake and then, yikes, looming above us was this behemoth who apparently didn't hear or deem our radio calls worth a response. We were fine. Good thing we stopped. Last time I'll cross a channel in fog... Another time when with a group we had crossed a channel and were rafted up to enjoy a snack, some water, some chatter. We were floating above a somewhat shallow ledge that dropped off somewhat quickly to the depths of a commercial shipping lane. An outbound merchant shipped passed on the far side of the channel, and we watched but didn't give it much thought. About a minute later, its wake approached...and when it hit the sudden shallow of our ledge, it quadrupled in height.... A few of us yelled , "incoming!" and got our bows pointed into the approaching, now breaking wake/wave. But some didn't quite make the turn and got hid abeam...and one was literally thrown in the air, sideways, at another member of the group who was pointing bow into the wave....it could have been really, really messy. But, thankfully no one was injured....just ruffled. Good lesson on situational awareness. -Will *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List - Any opinions or suggestions expressed here are solely those of the writer(s). You must assume the entire responsibility for reliance upon them. All postings copyright the author. Submissions: PaddleWise_at_PaddleWise.net Subscriptions: PaddleWise-request_at_PaddleWise.net Website: http://www.paddlewise.net/ ***************************************************************************Received on Wed Apr 22 2009 - 11:05:23 PDT
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