Radio King

Brady has been the VHF radio king on Further since we have been using it more and more to hail marinas for transient slips. And let me tell you he has become a real pro! I don't know why but we still think it's funny using the radio, something we have to do on a daily basis but for some reason it's always funny to us. Maybe it's because you have no idea how many people or who is listening to you and if they are anything like us, they are making fun of whoever they hear calling on the radio. We come up with whole sceneries and backgrounds of the people we hear talking on the radio. Why? I don't know. People just sound funny to us when speaking on the VHF for some reason. 

When out we always have our VHF on, I'm sure this is common practice for boaters. When it's on you keep it tuned into channel 16. This is considered the hailing channel. Everyone who has their radios on is monitoring this channel i.e. the Coast Guard, big container and shipping freighters, your average boater or sailor, harbors, a lot of people... you get the picture. So everyone is monitoring this channel and listening to see if someone is trying to call you or if someone announces information that pertains to you. 

We, like everyone else on the water, monitor channel 16. However we tend to follow conversations when they switch to another channel because, well, we don't have anything better to do. We are stuck out on the water with just ourselves and stalking conversations when you are stuck on a boat for most of the day is a form of entertainment and breaks up the day. Not only is it a form of entertainment but it's also educational. Seriously. We also listen to learn proper 'radio etiquette', dos and don'ts when using the radio, proper pronounceation of town/harbor names, hear what other boats are doing, weather updates, coast guard updates, etc. 

Because we do this, we assume that everyone else is listening to us when we use the radio. Since we are just starting to become comfortable using our VHF, we still tend to practice hailing harbors before getting on the radio. Talking clearly, concise and using proper etiquette and terms while the other person is staring at you hoping that you screw up so that its funnier is very difficult. Honestly, you would think we were a couple of 7 year olds trying to use a VHF without getting caught! It makes me giggle just sitting here thinking about talking on the radio while writing this post! Maybe because in our minds we sound like the horrible 90s cartoons Beavis and Butthead. But I also think it has something to do with the fact that you don't know how many people are listening in on your conversation and are judging us. Brady and I are perfectionists and I personally get embarrassed very, very easily and laughter, usually uncontrollable laughter, is my defense mechanism. That's my excuse. I don't have one for Brady but he has gotten better with keeping his giggling when communicating on the VHF at bay. 

I on the other hand have not. The other day when we were having a really tough, stressful and very, VERY long sailing day, we tried to hail our target harbor when we were still a couple hours out just in case they were closed before we got into port. For some reason the harbor could hear us but when they responded all we heard was static. So we figured that we would try to hail them again when we were closer. Toward the end of our sail Brady was taking care of an issue below deck, we had an exhaust leak inside the boat, this unfortunately made the motor look like it was overheating (which it wasn't and everything turned out to be fine). So, while Brady was investigating the smoke coming from below deck the harbor happened to hail us. I took it upon myself while driving the boat to respond since Brady was a bit busy. 

Usually the first thing one party says is to move the conversation to another channel to get off of 16, but for some reason that wasn't suggested just yet. After a successful first non-giggly response, I was unable to keep the laughter at bay and when answering the next question of "how are you doing" Due to the current circumstances I let out a roar of laughter mid word over channel 16 for all the traffic on Lake Huron to hear. If you ask any of my friends, family or co-workers, they will tell you that my laugh is not the cute quiet type. So imagine a hearty, uncontrolled laugh going out to an open mic. Once I realized what was happening I took my finger off the transmit button to stop broadcasting my inappropriate laughter, quickly regrouped and answered the next few questions with minimal giggle interruptions. 

After my little outburst, the person at the harbor also requested for us to move our conversation to a different channel, something I wish was done before my laugh attack. Thankfully the Coast Guard didn't come on to reprimand me, they frequently have to do this to people having inappropriate conversations on channel 16. We have heard the USCG give out people's coordinates to let them know if they didn't cease the inappropriate action they would have to charge them with one federal violation or another. I was hoping that no one ever heard my laugh because maybe my finger wasn't pressed down on the button hard enough. But no such luck, since the person who checked us in for the night asked me what was so funny when we were talking on the radio. Well, hopefully I made one or two strangers smile and if I'm lucky I became a great character in someone else's made up story of all the people on the radio!