Boating and Sailing.pdf - Moja ladja

The Color of Water
Chapter 14: Nautical Radio Gear and Procedures and Your First Longer Cruise
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To steer a compass course, don’t look at the compass. At least, don’t look at
it continuously. Get the boat headed in the right direction and the compass
stabilized, and then look into the distance ahead of the boat and pick out a
landmark—or a cloud in open ocean—and steer for that. If you try to steer by
watching the compass, you’ll create a crazed “snake-wake” as you chase the
oscillations of the compass card with the waves.
In many areas, a seasoned skipper can measure water depth simply by looking at its color.
To be sure, in the muddy waters of the Mississippi River, not even a catfish can navigate
by eye, but in the clear waters of the upper Great Lakes and in most coastal areas, navigation
by water color is a useful and accurate art, and one you’ll no doubt want to employ
on any cruise you take.
Water captures most colors of sunlight but reflects blue, so the deeper the water, the bluer
it looks. Extremely clear water like that in Lake Superior offers only shades of blue, while
water with a bit of sand in it, like that along much of the coast of Florida, may look pale
green in depths to 40 feet.
In most areas, the lighter the shade of water, the shallower it is. Thus, pale blue, pale
green, or whitish water may be anywhere from a couple feet to only inches deep.
Moderate blues and greens are anywhere from 4 to 40 feet deep, and deep blues and
greens are deeper than 40 feet. The green water fades to blue as you move farther offshore
and escape the stirred-up sand.
The deepest ocean waters are an indigo to violet shade that is spectacularly beautiful on a
sunny, calm day. (The colors on the back of a marlin or a sailfish mimic this magical
color.)
There is also a catalog of colors in inshore waters. Here are the most common:
◆ Dark-green spots surrounded by light-green spots: patches of grass or rock on sand
bottom.
◆ Broad, dark-green to gray areas in water that you know is fairly shallow: sea grass,
often prime fishing waters.
◆ Brownish spots: oyster bars or rocks dangerously near the surface.
◆ Dark blue or emerald through an otherwise pale-green flat: a deep channel, good for
boating (also good for finding spiny lobster to grill for dinner).
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