How to Read a Fog Signal

Before radar, before radios, the coast spoke in blasts. Every fog signal had a character, a rhythm of horns and bells that told a master where they were with their eyes shut. Learning to read them was a basic seamanship skill, and it is nearly gone.

The grammar is simple once you hear it. One long blast every fifteen seconds is a headland warning: keep off. Two blasts is a channel marker: the safe water is between me and the next light. Three short blasts means pilot boats are working. A bell with no horn at all marks a rock too small for a tower.

Cape Perrin still sounds its diaphone once a year, on the anniversary of the Perrin grounding, and when it does, half the town shows up to hear it. The character is one blast every thirty seconds, for exactly as long as it sounded the night the Perrin hit the rocks in 1919.

If you can, come hear it. The coast almost never talks anymore, and when it does, it is worth listening.