Gear Colors

colors

You might not think that color matters much, but I prefer light, bright colors for any accessory that I might drop or set down. This includes knives, lights, bags, weights, and many other things. Yellow is my favorite color for this.

Despite the fact that black is really the only cool color for tech divers, I prefer Coast Guard orange uppers on my drysuits. These make you easier to spot, whether in the murk of the quarry, or drifting away on the surface of the Atlantic.

DIR

All equipment must be black. Ha ha - just kidding. You guys can take a joke, right?

...

No?

Note: There is actually a scientific explanation for the humorous chart above: Women see colors better than men. I'm not talking about colorblindness. Women have a fourth receptor for something like teal that men simply don't have. That means they have four primary colors, while men have just three. Obviously, men can see teal as well, but we have to make it from the other three primary colors.


Aids to Navigation

Shipping Lanes & Lighthouses

The US Coast Guard maintains a number of aids to navigation to assist vessels entering and leaving ports, both great ports like New York and Philadelphia, and minor ports like Shark River and Montauk. At sea, these aids take the form of buoys that mark out channels and shipping lanes. The chart about also marks major ocean-side lighthouses and a few others. All of these are still extant and may be visited except Shinnecock, which was torn down.

Shipping lanes are like divided highways at sea. Inbound and outbound lanes are separated by a wide "Separation Zone, " which may or may not be depicted on the charts in this website, depending on the scale. Ships "drive on the right" just like cars in civilized countries. At the inbound end where all the lanes converge into the harbor channel, things get messy, and I didn't try to depict it. Likewise, the outer ends of the lanes are not exact either.