This article is one in a series offering tips on boating skills and seamanship prepared for The Citizen by the U.S. Coast Guard Auxiliary.

Early in every boating career, the importance of various aids to navigation comes through loud and clear. Why? Because these day markers, buoys, lights, ranges and similar devices take the place - on the water - of street signs, highway markers and road map symbols.

Along coasts, rivers, lakes, waterways, channels and harbors, aids to navigation serve as markers and guides to help the boater locate position and avoid hidden dangers.

They range all the way up to lighthouses, Texas Towers and sophisticated electronic devices and systems such as radio beacons all designed for one purpose: aiding boaters, recreational as well as commercial.

Aids to navigation assist the skipper in making land from the open sea. They can lead you through harbors, and through rivers and channels. Aids provide a continuous chain of charted marks for coastal piloting. In short, they are indispensable to safe boating.

Most common is the day marker, also the red and green buoys, which flank the United States coastline. Through an arrangement of colors, shapes, numbers, lighting and other characteristics, these aids instruct a boater as to where he/she is and how to proceed.

Navigational aids have been placed along coastal waters in a lateral system, proceeding southerly down the Atlantic Coast; in a northerly direction along the Gulf Coast; in a northerly direction on the Pacific Coast; in a westerly and northern direction on the Great Lakes except Lake Michigan where they are southerly.

Since all channels do not lead from seaward, these are arbitrary guidelines established for a consistent system.

For example, as your boat proceeds in from seaward or open water, green markers or buoys mark the left side of the channel. Red markers or buoys mark the right side. Thus, the handy saying “red right returning” applies as you proceed landward. Keep the red buoys on your right (starboard) side when returning from sea.

In Cayuga Lake, this means when traveling from the north to the south. In fact, boaters who travel to the north end of the lake on their way to one of the locks must remain in the well marked channel since the water outside the channel is shallow.

Proceeding along the U.S. coastline, red markers or buoys always will be found on the landward side.

There are a number of special-purpose buoys that aid the boater's navigation and other piloting uses. For example, vertically striped green-and-white buoys mark the fairway or mid-channel. Red and green horizontally banded buoys mark junctions in the channel or obstructions. A white buoy denotes a safe anchorage.

Because of their many styles, shapes and color patterns, the Coast Guard Auxiliary recommends that boaters keep aboard an up-to-date chart which interprets the meaning of these informational aids.

At night, lights play a major part in the aids to navigation system. Buoys or daymarks commonly are lighted with either green, red or white lights and the constant or flashing lights each give a navigational message.

The aids to navigation system represents a language that every boater should fully understand, to help ensure safe boating.

Full instruction on day and night aids and how to interpret them is available in the boating skills and seamanship course offered free to the public by the U.S. Coast Guard Auxiliary.

For further information, contact your nearest U.S.Coast Guard Auxiliary Flotilla or the Ithaca Flotilla at (607) 273-7175.

John E. Keshishoglou is the

commander of the Ithaca Flotilla 22