No doubt you folks have been following the tragic story of the death of Jose Fernandez and two companions in a boating accident several days ago. Fernandez was a talented young pitcher for the Miami Marlins, very well loved by his teammates and Marlins fans for his positive and humble attitude and charitable activities. He was a balsero who had escaped Communist Cuba on a raft, and had rescued his mother from drowning when she fell overboard during the crossing of the Florida Straits.
Fernandez and his companions were returning from a fishing trip early in the morning, and ran into a stone jetty alongside Government Cut channel in the dark. These jetties run parallel to the channel, to help keep down wave action in the fairway, and prevent spoil dredged from the channel from sliding back into it. It appears all three were killed instantly, the boat slammed into the rip-rap at full speed.
The link below will lead you to the NOAA harbor chart of the scene (Government Cut is along the top edge of the chart, right about in the middle). Just zoom in for a closer look. The jetties alongside the channel are marked, along with the aids to navigation in the area. For scale, Government Cut is 500′ in width. The two buoys marked R “14″, Fl Red 2.5s (at the South end of Miami Beach) and G “7″ QG, are exactly 1 nautical mile (2000 yards) apart. G “7″ is at the bend of the channel to the East. The letter codes refer to “Flashing Red 2.5 seconds” and “Quick (flashing) Green. Every aid to navigation has its own unique characteristics charted so it can be unambiguously identified in the dark.
Press reporting of these incidents is usually pretty inaccurate, but I have gone to the trouble of looking into it to try and reconstruct the nature of the accident, which is quite common in this area. Although the channel is clearly marked and easy to navigate, and conditions were perfect, it is easy to get confused with the aids to navigation back-lit by the lights of the city. Approaching from the offshore fishing grounds, tired from a long day in the sun and in a hurry to get home, it is easy for even the most experienced skipper to try a shortcut, get disoriented and turned around and slam into an obstruction at top speed. Given the high speeds of modern sport fishing boats, tragedies like this are not uncommon. I wouldn’t be surprised if over-reliance on marine electronics didn’t contribute to this tragedy. GPS will tell you where you are, but not which way you have to go.
At 40 miles an hour, a situation like this can develop very quickly, and get away from you before you know it. Add bad weather and poor visibility and its a wonder the casualty rate isn’t much higher.
http://www.charts.noaa.gov/OnLineViewer/11465.shtml