Skunked

Last night (Wednesday) I took the boat out on a nocturnal voyage. I have taken the boat out at night exactly two times. The first night out was not intentional, I was camping in Biscayne National Park with some friends and got back late. I planned to be at the campsite by dusk, but it did not work out that way. Darkness came and I was still out on the water. That time out was fairly stressful.

But this time I planned to be out at night. The idea was to find a grassflat, and try to bully net some lobster. No problem - I am good at finding grassflats. I usually find them while trying to AVOID them.

Except this time I could not really find any shallow grass flats. I was TRYING to run aground, and I could not. No matter what I did, I could not find water shallower than four feet.

So to re-cap, in the daytime while trying to not hit any shallows, I hit the shallows. At night, while trying to find the shallows - I can't. There is no justice in the world.

Anyhow, I did not catch any lobster. The water was too deep to clearly see the bottom, and even if I did see a lobster netting it would have been a trick. For bully netting, it helps to have fairly shallow water.

I did have some fishing poles. I did not catch any fish, but my fishing buddy did. He managed to catch an undersize red snapper and a baby hammerhead shark. Both fish were tossed back.

Navigating at night was not nearly as stressful this time out. This was mainly due to the way cool GPS chartplotter I have. The chartplotter shows me a detailed marine chart, and exactly where I am on that chart. This is VERY nice. Last time out at night I had to do with a handheld GPS with a small screen I could not see when the boat was underway, and whatever ATONs (aids to navigation) I could see. Some ATONs have flashing lights, some do not.

This time it was great. The chartplotter has all the ATONs on the display. The display is large enough to be readable even when the boat is moving. All I had to worry about was any floating garbage in the water (2x4 planks being the most common). I did not hit anything.

I might try to get out again before lobster season ends. I have till March 31. But next time, I will go out on a low tide night. I think that I was over some good flats, but since it was high tide the water was just a little too deep. I know I can run aground at night during a low tide if I really try hard.