WaterColours
Cool clean waters of the Great Lakes. After having hung around Lake Erie for a decade we were impressed with how clear the water had become. Apparently the zebra mussel infestation had resulted in a filtering of much of the organic stuff out of the water. The last time we checked when swimming in the lake the visibility within the water was amazingly about 15 to 20 feet. On a calm day, if you ever get overheated while sailing in the Great Lakes, you think nothing of going overboard for a swim. The lakes are so clear that you can see the sea life that they contain. We left these cool clear waters of the Great Lakes in mid-September to begin this southward adventure. Southward to the crystal clear salt waters of the Caribbean.
The short cut to the Caribbean is through a bunch of waterways that connect various lakes, canals, rivers, creeks and swamps. The series of waterways includes the Cayuga and Erie Canal, the Hudson River, Deleware Bay, Cheasapeake Bay, Albemearle Sound, Alligator River, then the ICW which starts in Norfolk, Virgina and continues to Florida. There are various spots where we sail out into the Atlantic Ocean to get around some really shallow stretches of the waterway.
I imagine that someone that grows up along these waterways would believe water was anything but clean and clear. The waterways take lots of runoff and are stirred up to a greenish brown, brownish green, black, brackish, black and tan, and tan colours. They appear solid with very little transparence at all.
While we went through the Erie canal we noticed the water is a shade of greenish brown. The shade you would expect runoff to turn a river to have after a long period of rain. We didn’t have but an afternoon of rain during our transit. But the camo green water and deadheads remained during our entire passage. I can’t imagine life other than algae here, but there are always an a abundance of sports fisherman.
While in the Erie Canal our depth sounder was acting up somewhat and not giving continuous consistent readings. It was providing depth information of sorts, just not good information. It was as if something was blocking the signal now and then. We checked the wiring between the depth sounder display and the transducer and the power connections. Nothing out of the norm. It would be a dream to assume that there was growth on the transducer, and that all we needed to do was clean it off. Dreams are nice to have. As soon as we were in some cleaner water we could dive in and clean off the transducer (the part in the water that senses the water depth). If something had grown over the transducer it that would be a simple fix. If not a fix, at least we would have ruled out another possibility.

No trouble the Erie Canal is somewhat consistent in depth, we can’t get in to much trouble here. Toboggan only draws 6 feet of water, and the canal was always much greater than that.
After going through the Hudson River for some time, I was reminded of the infamous story that I had heard as a child…that the Hudson was so polluted at one time that it had caught on fire. Needless to say, while we were there the Hudson’s water had a brownish green tinge and a strong odor. Visibility into the water was about zero inches. After motoring awhile in this water our boat hull soon had a nicotine coloured stain a foot up from the waterline all around.
The enourmous Delaware and Chesapeake Bays have a foamy softwater. Each their own unique colour of dark brown to black water. A water full of what not. Crab pots and crustateans for sure. I have heard people mention that the bays have sea nettles in them. Some people called them stinging nettles. I have no idea what they are of what they should be called. They could be animal, vegetable or mineral. They are apparently there. Toboggans keel bumped the soft mud in the Deleware, and wish we had better depth readings. We bumped again in the Chesapeake. The depth sounder information was cloudy at best. No problem, we were able to find deeper anchorages and manage the tide depths.
After having bumped the soft mud of the Chesapeake one too many times, I felt it was time to go in the water and look at the depth transducer. Sea nettles or not we were tired of the inconsistent readings from the depth sounder. Once anchored, I noticed we could see about 6 inches into the muddy brown water. With a mask on, I would be able to feel around and rub any growth off of the depth sounder. Looking down into the water after lowering the ladder, I saw a pink jelly fish. A large pink jelly fish. Its path drew a slow arch from the depths, horizontally across the water surface where it could be seen, then back into the darkness. Its body was 8 inches in diameter and its tentacle thingys about 2 feet long. Whoooow. That was a close one. Perhaps that was a sea nettle. I guess I was not that fed up with the depth sounder afterall. This little project could wait a little longer.
As you go south in the waterway past Norfolk, Virginia, deep water becomes a scarce. At the same time our depth sounder information became less reliable.
Deep water in the centre of the Intercoastal Waterway (ICW) seams to be 10 to 12 feet. We often see water depths of 8 feet or less. If you can manage to stay in the deep water you are ok. Sometimes its tough to know where the deep water is.
Things were getting tighter between our keel and the bottom. Our hands had a tight grip on the helm, our eyes poured over the charts, scanned for the markers, monitored the gps, and the depth sounder. Finally in Oriental, North Carolina, in a muddy harbour, I slipped into the dirty water and felt the transducer with my hand. A little slime but not much else. I wiped it clean.
Back on the surface, the information the depth sounder provided was no better. My little dream of an easy fix had just ended. Next step replacement of components.
Replace either the head unit of the depth sounder or the transducer component or both. Replacing the transducer meant hauling the boat our of the water. An expensive proposition. Just in the nick of time the waters of South Carolina were a cloudy blue teal colour. We could see some depths, the sun was out, there were dolphins playing in the wake of our boat…the depth sounder problem had partially resolved it self. All was good we could ignore the depth sounder issue once again.
Finally the blue green water we had dreamed of. Dreams sometimes are short lived and this was one of those times. We went back in forth between blue and brown water as we got near and far from an ocean inlet. Then one day we had only coffee coloured water again. We had long arrived in Florida, travelled a long stretch of water with 6 foot 6 inches deep water. We were once again back to the stressful grip on the helm, the sharp look out for anything that signaled the difference between deep and shallow water.

We replaced the depth sounder display. No help. We returned the depth sounder display, ordered a transducer and hauled the boat out of the water. Back in the water, we held our breath. Yeah, good depth readings. We could relax at the helm. Just a little.
After another few weeks of muddy water we crossed the Gulf Stream and into the Bahamas. We were beside ourselves when we saw the indescribable transparent blue hues of water. Here the water depth was often 10 feet and you could see the ripples in the sand below. With good sunlight and calm water there was no need for a depth sounder.