Keeping a Good Lookout

There are a thousand reasons to keep a good lookout. Modern navigational aids and numerous digital devices continue to improve, reducing accidents at sea. Despite all that equipment, it remains very important to keep an eye ahead and even read the signs along the shore. Dick & Laura Peek of the Sceptre 41 Maia in Queensland (QLD), Australia, who were also part of the 2018 Pacific Puddle Jump, sent us this photo of an unusual aid to navigation.

Typically you’d be watching for ships, reefs, navigational buoys or sailing traffic but, in this case, you’d have to be looking for blinking lights ashore and hope you have good enough eyesight or binoculars to read the sign to understand what they mean.

Hopefully, when you approach this sign and the lights start blinking, you’re not sailing under full spinnaker and shorthanded. According to Dick, this signal in Mackay, QLD, separates the inner, pleasure-boat marina from the outer, commercial harbor.

Do you have a shot of an unusual navigation marker? Send it to [email protected].