jay_merrill
Vice Admiral
- Joined
- Dec 5, 2007
- Messages
- 5,653
Last night, I put a red light stick and a green light stick to use, because my bowlight "died" just before it was time to leave a canal in which I had been watching a fireworks display.
While the problem turned out to be nothing more than a burned out lightbulb, I didn't want to take the time to unscrew the fixture, flip it over, and then unscrew the bottom plate, so that I could check the bulb. Instead, I grabbed the two light sticks, cracked them to activate the chemicals, and taped them to a cleat on their respective sides of the boat. This entire procedure took about three minutes to do.
I am very glad to have had the light sticks both because there were Parish Sherriff's boats all over the place, and because the ride back to the launch involved several miles of travel on the Intercoastal Waterway. By keeping my signal kit stocked with these, I probably avoided a visit by the water patrol (and possibly a ticket) and was able to quickly make sure that I was properly visible to the tugs/barges on the ICW.
I highly recommend purchasing a few of the colored light sticks. They are inexpensive, readily available at a lot of sporting goods stores, and are a snap (pun intended!
) to use. Frankly, they just make life easy!
While the problem turned out to be nothing more than a burned out lightbulb, I didn't want to take the time to unscrew the fixture, flip it over, and then unscrew the bottom plate, so that I could check the bulb. Instead, I grabbed the two light sticks, cracked them to activate the chemicals, and taped them to a cleat on their respective sides of the boat. This entire procedure took about three minutes to do.
I am very glad to have had the light sticks both because there were Parish Sherriff's boats all over the place, and because the ride back to the launch involved several miles of travel on the Intercoastal Waterway. By keeping my signal kit stocked with these, I probably avoided a visit by the water patrol (and possibly a ticket) and was able to quickly make sure that I was properly visible to the tugs/barges on the ICW.
I highly recommend purchasing a few of the colored light sticks. They are inexpensive, readily available at a lot of sporting goods stores, and are a snap (pun intended!
) to use. Frankly, they just make life easy!