1.5 hours on an open boat in search of the Sun...

Boater safety is important and so easy to do. First and probably the only one that matters have a way to communicate. In the US that is the presence of a VHF radio. That radio is the same used by large ships and small ships. It lets you talk about what you see, and talk to the other boats you see. The next is a life preserver. One of the things my wife and I talked about a lot is do we require people to wear life vests when they are on the boat.

50% or more of drowning deaths are directly related to the fact that people didn’t wear their life vests. Our rule is you get on our boat you wear your life vest! The last rule of the three easy rules is to tell someone where you are going. Someone should know when you leave and know when you are expecting to arrive. The airplane world calls it a flight plan. In the boating world, we call it a float plan. Our goal was to make it from the winterization location to our marina.

We were by the way 40 minutes late. My poor wife twice as far as we boated and beat us there by an hour. We made it, and with the advent of shore towers, we were able to talk via cell phone the entire time. It was not the maiden voyage in our boat, but it was just our second trip (this was the first time we were on our newer boat). You learn to communicate, sometimes that is the difference between a great trip and a sad trip!