 Welcome to Tech Talk. My name is Aaron. On today's episode, we're going to talk about some simple rules of the road. Channel markers, much like street signs, all serve a purpose. You're going to have your red and your green. Your green marker is always going to be in the shape of a square and have an odd number on it. Your red marker is always going to be in the shape of a triangle and have an even number on it. You're always going to want to try to place yourself perfectly between the two or a little bit over to the right depending on which direction you're heading. The numbers on these markers do have a purpose. They allow you to track yourself on a chart, as well as let you know that you haven't skipped a marker when you're underway. The great thing about the garment system that comes standard on all sports and boats is it comes preloaded with maps. It has all your channel markers and their numbers already in it. A cool thing too is to get these track marks right here so I can actually follow my routes, know if there's any obstructions, and to avoid that area. When I zoom in, you can actually see that's channel marker 5. If you look to our starboard over there, that green marker is number 5. So what you see here is what we call a day board. What a day board will do is give you the rules for that area. This one in front of us is a slow speed minimum wake. What that means is you have to get your boat off plane and cruise it a speed where you're not throwing a big wake but enough to where you have control of the vessel. You'll also see a slow speed no wake. A slow speed no wake sign means that you have to be completely off plane. The boat has to be flat in the water and throwing the least amount of wake you can. Those are going to be in residential areas around boat ramps, bridges, and marinas. This red buoy we just came up on is a floating buoy. These will sometimes be in place of your normal channel marker. This in particular one has been placed here because the regular channel marker was damaged. It'll still be red and have the shape of a triangle towards the top and unfortunately they won't have a number on it. The day board we just came up on is letting us know that we can get on plane inside the channel anything outside of it. We still have to be minimum wake and has a 25 mile an hour speed limit on it. The speed limits are going to be based on the area so that you may see variable speed limits depending on the area along the intercoastal waterway. We're coming up to a drawbridge here. This bridge isn't passable with the boat with the teetop. It's a lower lying bridge. What we're going to do is show you how to correctly hail the bridge and get yourself an opening. We're not going to pass under this bridge but in this instance I would reach up and grab the VHF. I would hail the bridge on either channel 9 or 16 let them know what vessel I'm in and request an opening. The bridge tender will normally tell you when his next opening is going to be and the whole tight or hey captain open on the hour or the half an hour. So in this instance what I would say is Mathers Bridge. This is the southbound 24 foot sportsman requesting an opening. You may have heard the saying red right return. That comes into play when you're coming offshore into an inlet. The red mark will always be on your right hand side or your starboard side when you're returning from sea. We're returning from Sebastian Inlet which is south of us. Red right return will come and play with us when heading back to the dock. Well guys that just covers some of the basics. We highly recommend that you look into all state and local laws as well as take a safety boating course in your local area. The power squadron in the US Coast Guard put on great courses for that new boater that'll give you that confidence behind the wheel and let you enjoy boating that much more. If you guys have any questions leave them below in the comments. If you like this video hit the thumbs up button or subscribe to our YouTube channel. Thank you for your time we appreciate you watching.