Things you'll never hear on the VHF at Lake Perry

1.  <<in response to a smartass comment by a boater>>  This is the United States Coast Guard, we are monitoring and recording this channel. This channel is to be used for emergency communication. Repeat: this is the United States Coast Guard monitoring and recording this channel.

What you'd hear at the lake:  Children screaming into the mic.  Joe Cooter Redneck telling his buddy to have relations with himself. Occasionally my intoxicated husband forgetting to switch over to 68.

2.  This is the United States Coast Guard Cutter Thetis, will be conducting a live artillery drill at (longitude) XXXN and XXXW. All vessels in the area please be aware that there will be live artillery drill.

To which my husband says to me:  Where the hell is that, are we near, I didn't hear the coordinates. Holy shit!


3. Harbor police, harbor police, harbor police, this is XXX.  There are some speed boats tearing up the no wake zone by Rickenbacker Bridge.

No wake zone? What's that?  The only use our no wake buoys get is when they are used to mark the jetty when it is submerged in the spring 'tide'.  If the docks a rocking, don't come a-knocking.




A while back we were on a day charter with Captain Don K. out of Key West (he's since sold his boat).  He told us the best free entertainment in the world could be listening to Channel 16 around the Keys.  Sure enough, later that day, there was a distress call from a lady that said her husband went overboard and she can't find him.  Capt'n Don says: "I bet you she pushed him overboard. Wouldn't be the first time." Okay, it might not be politically right, but it was funny--after all, what wife hasn't wanted to do a man overboard drill with the spouse once in a while?

But seriously: Learn your VHF, learn how to use it, learn the etiquette, learn what it means by 'rendering help' on a mayday call.  As amusing as the broadcasts can be at times, there's some pretty serious stuff that happens.

On our recent trip, we heard 4 different reports of capsized boats because folks were taking the fishing boats out when the water was too rough. One report of a Cuban chug overladen with people and immobilized and a missing sailboat that was due into Hemingway Harbor in Havana and didn't report in.

Scary.

PS--26 days until we are out of this frozen wasteland and back down on the boat. And the Boat Show!