Sometimes you just have to look

Daniel Cornwall
Sep 9, 2018 · 4 min read
Orange ball float near high tide

This is a story of how speculating about things from a distance can only take you so far.

I’m blessed to live on the ocean in the protected waters of Southeast Alaska’s Inside Passage. We have large tidal ranges. It is not uncommon for there to be a 15 foot (4.6 meter) swing from low to high tide. As a result, my backyard view swings from a water view to extensive tidal flats twice every 24 hours.

The top picture is of an orange ball float that has been in the area for several years. It floats at high tide and is stranded near the edge of the water at low tide. Because it’s an orange ball float, I assumed it was a marker for a crab pot — even though it’s a very shallow place to put one. I rationalized my idea by telling myself the cable I couldn’t see led into the water off the tidal flats, then down to the crab pot.

I didn’t see any need to test this idea. I live on the third floor of my building and was content to watch the ball from the balcony. It wasn’t high stakes to me whether the ball was connected to a crab pot or not. Then my mother-in-law came to town for three weeks.

I like my mother-in-law. She’s a great person. One of the things that I enjoy about her is that she’s curious. She asked me many questions about things on the water — include the odd orange float. My mother-in-law was not satisfied with my answer. She wondered why we never saw the float past the edge of the tidal flats if there was really a crab pot over the edge. It was a good point. I told her that sometime at low tide, I would go down to the shore and investigate more closely.

Our visit with my mother-in-law was busy. So when the sun was shining I didn’t think about the orange float. When I did think about the orange float, it was either night or raining.

She’s been gone a week, but yesterday I got her answer, and a follow on question for myself.

Yesterday I went out at low tide. First I walked out to the float and got a good look at it at ground level:

Orange ball float with shellfish encrusted cable.

Seeing that the cable was encrusted with shellfish was my first clue this probably wasn’t for a crab float. I’ve only gone crabbing once in my 20 years in Alaska, but I know that the drill is to haul up the pot by it’s marker cable. That seems likely to mean that a well tended crab pot wouldn’t be completely encrusted.

Next I followed the cable and found this at the end, also on the tidal flats:

Metal anchor to orange ball float.

Here’s a shot I took showing the ball and its anchor together:

Orange ball float tied to its metal anchor.

From ground level, the orange ball float clearly has nothing to do with a crab pot. But I couldn’t tell that from the balcony. From my perspective, the seaweed and shellfish on the anchor cable blended into the the seaweed and shellfish on the tidal flats. I had to actually abandon my perch and get my shoes muddy to find an answer. I hope I’ll internalize this lesson and not have to learn it again and again.

Though I have one answer, I have another question. If the orange ball float isn’t there to make a crab pot, why is it there? I thought of marking shallow water, but there’s plenty of unmarked shallow water around here. If there were contact information on the float (and sometimes floats do have id and contact information) I could call and find it out its purpose. As it is, I just have the question. But now it’s the right question, so I call that a win.

Written by

Librarian, technologist, hiker, space enthusiast, and lifelong learner living in Southeast Alaska. I like reading sci-fi, mystery and nonfiction of most kinds.

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