Sea Kayaking and Kayak Fishing Gloucester, Massachusetts at Night

Let's say you're a sea kayaking or striper kayak fishing enthusiast planning to set out for a trip at night. Maybe your destination is the Magnolia shores off Gloucester, Good Harbor Beach, the Dogbar Breakwater at Eastern Point, or Ten Pound Island.

How confident are you that you can keep track of where you are, and without having to rely on a gps? Here's a safety and navigation quiz you can take. It's appropriate for any for sea kayaking or kayak fishing enthusiast who enjoys kayaking at night or who buys the theory that the best time to fish for striped bass is at night with a tube and worm or live eels.

Let's say you've put your kayak in at Stacy Boulevard in Gloucester, Massachusetts (a well-known kayak striper fishing area), near the man at the wheel statue, or from Niles Beach, also in Gloucester. You plan to kayak and fish outer Gloucester Harbor, from Ten Pound Island off Rocky Neck to the breakwater at Eastern Point.

Can you interpret the NOAA chart navigation code for the lighthouse at Eastern Point and the light at the end of the Dogbar at the entrance to outer Gloucester Harbor?

Here are the codes for the two lights:

1. Eastern Point lighthouse: FL 5s 57ft 20M

1. Dogbar light and horn: Oc R 4s 45ft 6M

Alternatively, say you put your kayak in at Pebble Beach, about eight miles northeast, in Rockport.

Pebble Beach lies adjacent to Rockport's Long Beach and Cape Hedge Beach and is a well known striped bass kayak fishing spot popular with sea kayakers, scuba divers and swimmers.

You set out easterly for Pebble Beach, headed for Milk Island. Can you interpret the NOAA chart navigation code for the lighthouse at Thachers Island [link]:

Thachers Island south light: FL R 5s 166ft 17M

First reader to give the correct answer via email to twitter.com/seakayak gets a free copy of NOAA Chart 1, the handy booklet that spells out the meaning of the dozens of symbols, codes, colors and markings that make up the information held on a NOAA chart.

Meanwhile, sea kayaking and kayak fishing enthusiasts who want to assess the structure, depths, islands and beaches of Gloucester, Massachusetts's and Rockport's inshore bluefish and striped bass waters can download the NOAA navigation chart for Cape Ann at NOAA 13279. Downloads cost $2.75.

NOAA recently rolled out an experimental program for boaters to download and print nautical charts for the east and west coast and the Great Lakes. The printable pdfs are small in size, up-to-date, and fold into handy sizes useful for small-boat users, sea kayakers and kayak fishermen.

The key to best utilizing the service is to print out the pdf's with a high-quality inkjet printer. After you've printed the numerous pages in the pdf, glue adjacent sections of coastline together, back to back.

Then head down to your nearest office supply store: Staples, OfficeMax, etc. Have the clerk at the photocopy desk laminate the sheets in plastic sleeves. The lamination will waterproof your charts.

Better yet, the plastic lamination provides a handy surface for making notes on your chart with grease pencil or a Sharpie pen. The advantage of the Sharpie and grease pencil is that you can erase your notes when you're done. Just use a cotton ball suffused with rubbing alcohol.To receive sea kayaking and kayak fishing updates, follow SeaKayak onTwitter.