H Is For Ham Radio | Nancy Drew Investigates {A To Z Challenge}

During April, we're participating in the Blogging from A to Z Challenge. Every day (except Sundays), we'll be doing an alphabet themed post starting with "A is for Anchor" and ending with "Z is for Zodiac." Each post is an installment of "Nancy Drew Investigates the Case of the Missing Anchor" - so you may want to read the posts from the beginning, in order to follow along with the story (click here for the first post and here for an index of all the posts). At the end of each post, you'll also find some random thoughts on the day's particular topic. So, if Nancy isn't your thing, feel free to skip the story and go straight to the end.   

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When we last left you, the suspicious man aboard Party Time forced Nancy and her friends over into shallow waters, where they ended up grounding their boat.

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“What’s happened? Why aren’t we moving?” asked Bess. “It looks like the boat is grounded,” said her friend, Nancy. “That catamaran deliberately came alongside us so that we would be forced into shallow water.”

Marvin looked over the side of the boat and reassured Nancy, “Fortunately, it’s all soft mud around here, so everything should be fine.” He turned to his wife, Shelley and said, “I think if we wait for an hour or so the tide will come in, raise the water level and we’ll float off of the bottom.”

“That sounds like a good plan, honey. Why don’t we have an early supper while we wait? While I get everything ready, why don’t you get on the VHF and report the incident to the Coast Guard.”

While everyone headed down below, Bess had a look over her shoulder at the shore. “Wow, I can’t believe how close we are to the beach. How shallow is the water here?”

Nancy pointed at a monitor mounted near the companionway in the cockpit. “This tells you how deep the water is. It’s currently reading 5.2 feet. Shelley and Marvin’s keel is 5.5 feet, so we need the water to rise up a few inches so we can get off the bottom.”

“I heard Marvin say that we were in soft mud. What would have happened if we had grounded the boat on something else?” Bess asked.

“We were lucky. If we had hit a reef or run into rocks, we could have seriously damaged the boat. Then, we might be radioing the Coast Guard to rescue us, rather than just reporting the incident.”

“Re..re..rescue us?” Bess stammered. “I thought this weekend was supposed to be fun.”

Nancy gave Bess a quick hug. “Don’t worry. Everything’s fine and we’re going to have a wonderful time at the regatta. Come on. Let’s head down below for supper.”

Bess quickly forgot about grounding the boat when she saw the table with cold chicken, potato salad, coleslaw and buttered rolls on it. “This looks delicious,” she said as she sat down on one of the settees next to Nancy and her cousin, George.

“And don’t forget that we have brownies for dessert,” said George. “That should cheer you up.”

Marvin got up from the chart table and sat down on the other settee. “Well, I radioed the Coast Guard on the VHF and told them what happened. They’ll be on the lookout for the catamaran.”

“All right everyone, dig in,” said Shelley as she sat down. “Nancy, your father tells me that you got your ham radio license last summer.”

“Yes, I thought it would be a useful thing to have so that I can use the marine bands on an SSB radio. Plus, I can help out with the local ham radio club relaying information if there’s ever a natural disaster or emergency.”

Bess looked up from her plate of food and asked, “What’s a ham radio operator? Are there chicken and beef radio operators too?”

“No, silly,” said Nancy with a smile. “A ham radio license allows you to use certain amateur radio frequencies. Do you see that equipment next to the VHF radio? That’s an SSB radio. VHF is great when you’re close enough for someone to hear you, but an SSB radio allows you to communicate at much further distances.”

“Whatever you say, Nancy. It all sounds too complicated for me.” Bess reached across the table to get a second helping of potato salad.

“Be sure to save room for dessert,” Shelley said. As she went into the galley to get the brownies, the VHF crackled and they heard a voice say “This is sailing vessel Spider Sapphire calling all parties. This is sailing vessel Spider Sapphire calling all parties. Over.” “Spider Sapphire this is sailing vessel Double Jinx. Switch to channel 32. Over.”

Marvin got up from the table, went over to the VHF and switched the channel from 16 to 32 to listen in. “Spider Sapphire, this is Double Jinx. What seems to be the trouble?” “We’re at the beach at Moonstone Castle Cove and someone stole our dinghy while we were swimming. Now we’re stranded and can’t get back to our boat! I saw someone speeding away in our dinghy over to a white catamaran anchored at the entrance to the cove. Over.”

Tune in on Monday for the next installment of Nancy Drew Investigates – I is for Island.

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This is one of our VHF radios on board our boat. It sits next to other "Very Important, But Very Boring" items, like headlamps and binoculars.

Mmm....brownies! Boy, I sure wish we had brownies on our boat just now. There's nothing better than a plate of warm, chewy brownies fresh from the oven. Sadly, they're on my list of "Utterly Super Delicious, But Forbidden" foods just now. {Sigh} At least I can live vicariously through the brownies they ate onboard The Scarlet Slipper. The best thing about these virtual brownies is that they're calorie and fat free!

But, to get back to more "Educational and Important, But Extremely Dull Items", let's talk about VHF and SSB radios. We have two VHF radios on board our boat. One sits near the chart table down below (the one pictured above) and we have a handheld unit, which we keep in our ditch bag when not in use. We also have a RAM microphone up in the cockpit, which allows us to hear and talk on the VHF without having to go down below.

VHF radios are great, but they have a limited range. We have a dream of getting an SSB radio transceiver one of these days, which would enable us to better hear weather reports, talk to people and send and receive email. I even got my ham radio operator license so that we could use the free email service on an SSB radio.

But, like all things when it comes to cruising, we have had to make choices about what we buy now, versus later. SSB radio transceivers (which allow you to receive and transmit) are really expensive. So, we've settled for a simple, relatively inexpensive SSB receiver for now so that we can hear weather reports.

How about you - do you have a ham radio operator license? Do you have an SSB radio on your boat? Better yet, when's the last time you had brownies?  Describe them in tantalizing detail in the comments please.

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