US Coast Guard Proposes Removing Mile Buoy off Santa Cruz
The Santa Cruz Port District informed Monterey Bay boaters that the USCG is proposing to remove Mile Buoy “SC” about 1.5 miles SSW off Santa Cruz. This could disrupt life along the coast in a number of ways. For example, the 2023 Monterey Peninsula Yacht Club “Around Monterey Bay Mile Buoy Long Distance Race” instructions about the course say, “5.1 The race area will be between the Mile Buoys outside the harbors of Monterey, Santa Cruz and Moss Landing.”
The alert from Holland MacLaurie, port director of Santa Cruz Harbor, says, “The United States Coast Guard is proposing to remove the Mile Buoy and replace it with a mark on the chart. There would no longer be any buoy or other permanent marker in the waters along the Santa Cruz coastline. The Coast Guard distributed a Local Notice to Mariners describing the proposed removal (see page 2 of the notice). They are requesting comments from all interested parties by Wednesday, April 3. Comments may be directed to Lt. J.G. Samantha Hu at (510) 437-2983 or via email at [email protected]. The Coast Guard is particularly interested in any rationale relating to why the buoy is necessary for safe navigation in spite of the current availability and affordability of electronic navigation equipment (e.g. GPS).”
While maintaining a buoy for yacht racing is not the job of the Coast Guard, the visual and audible signal from the buoy has been a lifesaver for many small-craft boaters who do not have the latest electronics available. Even the latest electronics can fail, and an audible warning when the fog rolls in can be just the signal a sailor, kayaker, or fisherman needs to find their way safely home. It wasn’t that long ago that the Navy restarted celestial navigation training in case the GPS system got hacked or was otherwise caused to fail by malicious actors or celestial events. This could also have a severe impact on DoorDash’s ability to deliver a twelve-pack and a pizza to your boat.
Lighthouses are now museums, and with buoys next, the day will soon be here when we will wear our Apple Vision Pro VR goggles and “see” Mile Buoy even if it really isn’t there. With your AirPods in, you could hear the buoy’s whistle and the seals barking as you approach the mark, and they’d jump into the water on your Vision Pros as you round and set the kite. How cool would that be? (NOT.)
If you’d like to help preserve reality and Mile Buoy, we encourage you to contact the USCG: Lt. J.G. Samantha Hu at (510) 437-2983 or via email at [email protected].
John,
It’s not just Santa Cruz …
NORTHERN CALIFORNIA-HUMBOLDT-SOUND SIGNAL DEVICE CHANGE
The U.S. Coast Guard will be removing the following Safe Water Buoys and will be replacing them with Virtual AIS (V-AIS) Aids to Navigation:
LLNR 455 – Noyo Approach Lighted Whistle Buoy NA
LLNR 2435 – Newport Harbor Entrance Lighted Bell Buoy NWP
LLNR 3010 – Long Beach Channel Approach Lighted Whistle Buoy LB
LLNR 3840 – Morro Bay Approach Lighted Whistle Buoy MB
LLNR 490 – Humboldt Bay Entrance Lighted Whistle Buoy HB
LLNR 10 – San Diego Bay Approach Lighted Whistle Buoy SD
Direct any questions, comments, or feedback no later than 27 March, 2024 to LTJG Samantha Hu at 206-827-3518 or [email protected].
Separately, bells and gongs are being removed from some buoys.
The U.S. Coast Guard is permanently discontinuing the sound signal on the following Aids to Navigation:
Alameda Naval Air Station Channel Entrance Lighted Bell Buoy 1 (LLNR 4745)
Alcatraz Lighted Bell Buoy AZ (LLNR 4310)
Pillar Point Harbor Entrance Lighted Bell Buoy 3 (LLNR 4140)
San Francisco Main Ship Channel Lighted Bell Buoy 7 (LLNR 4190)
Pillar Point Harbor Entrance Lighted Gong Buoy 1 (LLNR 4130)
Please direct questions, comments, or concerns no later than 22 March, 2024 to LTJG Samantha Hu at 510-437-2983 or
[email protected].
Off to buy some Apple stock!
Years ago those buoy maintainers wanted to remove the Morro Bay sea buoy.
A letter came into the local Aids to Navigation office saying how in foggy conditions they’d use their depth sounder to find the sixty fathom line then stay on that line until they heard the sea buoy’s gong. This was before buoys beeped. Once at the buoy they could find their way into Morro Bay. I heard the name story from my dad who sailed aboard a jeep carrier in WWII.
Additionally the buoy by putting Santa Cruz on the chart –so to speak– is a source of civic pride for the locals.
You’re definitely need that extra 12 pack when you have to go another mile and a half looking for a rounding mark that isn’t even there.
I’m in favor of progress; it’s change I don’t like.
Mark Twain
Definitely retain -all- the buoys – a definite no to -all- the proposed changes! As you so correctly pointed out – electronics can and do fail!
I sail often with the latest gear on boats and have had my share of outages. It is telling that the Navy / CG itself is restoring CelNav – with GPS so vulnerable to solar storms and all the worldwide goings-on!
Keep all the buoys and functionality! I just called the 510-437-2983 number and no voicemail – nothing , it is inoperative itself – irony there, they don’t even take messages.
/rgds
virtual buoys do not show up on radar. and I have found the boat’s radar to be more stable than the GPS-enabled devices we have onboard. i sent an Email to the US CG with these comments.
Add to the list of buoys offline, the Bodega Bay buoy, with it’s weather and sea state info for us north coasters, and the 2M buoy, south of the main shipping channel into SF Bay. The 2M was super helpful to keep Mariners who were approaching from the south , off of the south bar. I am aware that the Trump administration gutted the budgets of the Coast Guard and Park Service, but all vice of these buoys save lives , which is the sworn service of the Coast Guard.
In the proposal the buoys will be replaced by virtual AIS marks. If you have AIS it will show on your plotter. AIS is VHF radio based and does not rely on GPS in any way. If the GPS system goes offline the world will have more problems than some sailboat (plane crashes?). If my GPS fails I have a backup in an iPad, another in an iPhone, etc.
The HMB weather buoy #46012 is off station and has been replaced by a Saildrone.
I don’t like that the hard buoys are possibly going away either but they are very expensive to maintain.
How is nobody talking about the mile buoy being significant as part of the cultural heritage of Santa Cruz?? The mile buoy whistle is the sound of Santa Cruz, just as much as the seagulls, the rollercoasters, and the waves lapping on the beaches. I cannot imagine a still Sunday morning without that iconic sound reminding me of the long ocean swell rolling through.
This would be a huge problem for a lot of the fishermen in Newport with non upgraded vessels, your going to force them to upstage thousands of dollars they can’t afford to use a fancy electrical radar that will likely have outages as do all electronics. What if our electrical grid shits down, will they still be able to operate in a safe like that? If we went to war and all of our tech was wiped out would they still work? Keep the buoys that have greatly helped these fishermen navigate. My grandfather before he passed used to use the light on the buoy and line them up with the bridges lights and that was how he knew to navigate into the harbor, this would be devastating to remove for our fishing community