Can You Find Me Now?

Diagram of a GPS Satellite Constellation

Once upon a time in a land 

based life, I lived in cell phone challenged Alloway Township.  Three different cell phone carriers over a dozen years didn’t improve reception.  Since then cell phones and reception have improved. 

“Can you hear me now?” has given way to “Can you find me now?”  Global Positioning Services (GPS) on Smartphones and vehicle navigation programs have become an essential element in our work and lives.

A recent road trip to visit family in North Carolina, Georgia, and South Carolina, with my oldest daughter and three grand children, got me to thinking about GPS and how much we have come to embrace its benefits.  The trip also demonstrated that GPS isn’t perfect and sometimes it doesn’t work. 

First, our destination street address, punched into the dashboard device, wasn’t recognized.  That’s no fault of the GPS. Mapmakers have yet to plot the entire world including new developments located in what some would call God’s country.  My daughter typed in the next locater, Lincolnton, Georgia.  The directions got us close to our destination.  After that we used the old time method of following niece, Sara from Lincolnton to Petersburg Trace.  While the road displayed on the screen, it had no name.  As we turned off nameless Petersburg Trace into the wooded area leading to the lake house, the GPS map display disappeared.  My daughter and I joked, “Can You Find Me Now?”

What is GPS?  What makes it work?  What interferes with reception?  Can corrections be made to the maps?  I just love the Internet.  It offers all the answers to the questions above and proves quicker than pulling out a dated encyclopedia.

The official United States government information site (GPS.gov) answered my questions in seconds.  According to the site, the Global Positioning System (GPS) is a satellite-based navigation system made up of a network of 24 satellites placed into orbit by the U.S. Department of Defense. GPS was originally intended for military applications, but in the 1980s, the government made the system available for civilian use. The U.S. Air Force has now added additional modern satellites to the mix. There are now 31. 

The configuration of satellites is known as a GPS constellation. It’s located 12,000 miles high in the exosphere, a transitional zone between Earth's atmosphere and interplanetary space. The satellites travel 7,000 miles an hour.   Powered by solar energy, backup batteries keep satellites running when there is no solar power, in event of a solar eclipse.   Rocket boosters keep satellites moving in a dedicated path.  Each unit weighs about 2,000 pounds. GPS transmits two dedicated signals, one for civilian use and the other for military use. GPS works around the world, 24 hours a day. There are no fees or setup charges to use GPS. GPS satellites circle the earth twice a day in a precise orbit transmitting signal information to earth. With this information GPS receivers use triangulation to calculate the users exact location.

Technically, the GPS receiver compares the time a signal is transmitted by a satellite with the time it is received. The difference tells the GPS receiver how far away the satellite is. With distance measurements from at least two or three more satellites, the receiver determines the user's position and displays it on a GPS device.

The GPS receiver must lock on the signal of three satellites to determine latitude and longitude when tracking motion.  When four or more satellites home in on the receiver an additional factor of altitude is calculated.  Imagine trying to explain GPS to someone living in the early part of the 20^th century.   The concept of something that can determine location, calculate speed, bearing, track, trip distance, and destination distance, sunrise, sunsets and tidal information can only be described as magic or science fiction.

GPS service can be disrupted.  Tunnels, mountain passes, heavy clouds and under bridges can interrupt service.  When a satellite drops below the line of sight, signals cannot be transmitted.  That probably explains why the unit map disappeared when we entered a heavily forested area near our destination.

As for mapping errors, some devices allow one to make corrections on the screen and upload them to the manufacturer. Others offer the same service via the Internet.  The changes can take months or longer to show up. The government run GPS service does not supply mapping information.

Every day new uses are found for GPS.  The Smartphone has brought GPS into our daily lives.  There are tracking apps that map our walks, our hikes, our runs and our biking expeditions.  After calculating distance, time and grade the apps can even calculate energy spent (calories).

Backpackers rely on GPS to fix their locations.  There are apps that can track a family member’s location in real time.  There are units that allow text messages to be sent from location to alert family of one’s well being.  Other units allow family to watch the position of a person traveling in real time on a computer, tablet or phone.

Farmers utilize GPS to plant and harvest crops.  Pet owners can purchase collar mounted GPS tracking devices to track pets. Organizations with large trucking fleets utilize GPS to track the entire fleet.  This allows us to follow packages as they move across country to a final destination.

On Imagine we use GPS to plot our course.  We set waypoints, calculatie sailing angles and fuel consumption.   We will soon add a mobile GPS satellite messenger to our toolbox.  This unit will allow us to text when out of cell phone range. It also includes a SOS feature that notifies a global international emergency response center to begin a search and rescue operation.  I’m hoping I’ll never have to ask, “Can you find me now?”

Beach Treasures and Beachcombers

Seashells, driftwood, sea glass and sea beans wash up on beaches every day.  Early morning beachcombers find the best treasures as they walk along the shoreline seeking gifts from the sea.  Many seek rare or perfect shells.  Others seek elusive sea beans or unique colors of sea glass.  It can become an addiction.

I fell in love with seashells when a third grade teacher shared her shell collection with the class.  Each week she taught about another shell. Holding the shell took us to a magical world.  The best part is that she created future beachcombers.  After an introduction to a new shell, she would give her students one of those shells to glue into a cardboard box.  I carefully printed the name of the shell into the box and meticulously arranged jingle shells, rose cockleshells, and olive shells with third grade precision.  Each shell became the perfect gem in my young eyes. A beachcomber was born. Much to my husband’s dismay, nearly 47 years later, I can’t walk a beach without finding a treasure to take back to the boat.

I didn’t pay much attention several years ago when a friend and former cruiser, Mary Ann Emenecker of the sailing vessel Owaso gave me a Sea Heart Bean.  She explained that sailors carry the heart shaped beans as a good luck charm to protect them from sickness and bad luck.  I forgot about it until I found my first “heart” bean on a Bahamas beach last winter.

One might ask, what is a sea bean?   That was my very question when a fellow cruiser, Yvonne Wilkins from sailing vessel Options III, expressed excitement about the “hearts” and the “hamburger” beans she had found earlier in the day. We went searching the next day. I was hooked.  Now I search for both beans and shells.

Sea Hearts come from the Monkey Ladder vine that is found in the rain forests of the tropics.  According to Sea-Beans.com, the thick vines drape over the treetops to provide shelter and highways for monkeys, snakes and birds.  The seedpods of the Monkey Ladder vine can grow up to six feet long.  Seeds fall into the lowland rivers and are carried out to sea in tropical storms and hurricanes.  Once in the ocean, currents can carry these seeds thousands of miles.

In the cruising world beachcombers get excited when they find a Mucuna seed, the true name for the “Hamburger” bean.   The one inch round medium to dark brown seed has a thick black band called a hilum that nearly circles the circumference of the seed making it look like a hamburger patty between two buns.   Like the Sea Heart many species of Mucuna seeds also originate from woody, high climbing vines in the tropics.

Sea beans have been used to make rosaries, belts, snuff boxes, lockets and other jewelry.  The hard seeds can be polished to a glistening shine with 1000 grit sand paper.  Or, one can tumble them in a rock tumbler with sand. A fellow cruiser and friend, Joann Shuttleworth from the sailing vessel Dreamweaver, collected over 150 Sea Hearts and over 50 hamburger beans one season.  Each day she combed the beach with a collection bag hanging from her waist and a bottle of water in a backpack.  When she returns home from sea, her discoveries are displayed in bowls and crystal containers.

One doesn’t have to go to the Bahamas to find sea beans.  North Atlantic beaches offer the collector a large variety of sea beans that wash in with the waves.   Sea beans that originate from South America, Central America, Mexico, and the West Indies eventually are caught in the powerful Gulf Stream and carried north.  Sea beans can also originate from Australia and Hawaii.

These sought after seeds get trapped in patches of seaweed that wash up on the shores of Gulf Coast states, eastern Florida, along the Carolinas or New Jersey banks, according to naturalist Cathie Katz in her newsletter “The Drifting Seed.”  Sea-Bean.com states that many of the seeds are impervious to salty water and can float for several years without breaking down.  Beans can make trans-Atlantic voyages and end up on the shores of Western Europe.

Drifting seeds are usually lumped under the term of “Beans” by collectors.  Collectors also treasure the smooth yellow, gray and brown Nicker Nuts as well as the Star Palm Nut.  Sea Purses are more rare and look like a purse shaped Hamburger Bean.   The black Mary’s Bean originates from the rain forests of Costa Rica and is very rare.

The good place to find sea beans is high along the shoreline in piles of dried sea grass.  I have a bamboo pole that I use to lift and shake the grass.  A two-hour beach hike might result in four Hamburger Beans, but then several weeks might pass before another bean appears.  “Drifting seeds of varied shapes, sizes, and colors have long captured human curiosity. Beautiful and inspiring, they carry with them the lure of distant exotic lands, and far away places,” explained Katz.   Perhaps the lure is that such as a pretty seed can make such a long journey.

The beaches of summer are calling.  As you walk along the beach, keep your eyes open.  The ocean often washes up gifts that give the beachcomber a glimpse of something magical, something that connects one to the simplicity and wonder of childhood. 

I've Got To Move It, Move it

Map My Run Route

Sometimes exercise is the only answer when those extra pounds begin to creep up faster than one would like.  During those times one must draw motivation to reverse the trend from any source available.  Sometimes it’s a friend. Sometimes it’s a quote. Sometimes it’s music.  DreamWorks chose well when they picked the single, "I Like to Move It, Move It," by Reel 2 Reel for an upbeat scene in the movie “Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa.”  The song has a beat that makes one want to get up and dance; in my case walk. 

I began a walking program about a couple of weeks ago.  I might not like to move it, but I've got to move it.  I weigh more than I should and carried it well for a long while. Lately I've noticed that its been getting a little harder to move in the morning. I’ll call it rusting.  No way do I want to rust before I have to.  So, with the beat of “I Like to Move It, Move It” churning in my head. I got off my butt and began to walk.  I now walk over two miles a day. 

Yes, I’m land bound for the summer; enjoying creature comforts such as television, air conditioning and showers that are actually hot.  The transition from Imagine to the house was way too easy.  I quickly became a couch potato. I surfed the net to my heart’s content, caught up on what was happening in the world and watched movies rented from Red Box.  A routine visit to the doctor’s office included the stepping on the scale ritual.  Of course I took off my shoes and peeked with one eye as the nurse adjusted the weights to balance the scale.  As she announced my weight, reality struck home.  I’ve got to move it!

I’m certainly not alone in my quest to improve my overall fitness.  Advertising proves that. Ads designed to capture American’s desires to become skinnier, stronger and healthier flashes on television, billboards, magazine pages, websites, and even on the side of public transportation.  Today’s technology offers a myriad of options to help one get fit.  There's one neat little app that can be downloaded onto the smart phone.  “Map My Run” not only logs one’s walk, it counts calories burned, tracks one’s pace and time and it maps your walk... or run via the GPS locater on the phone.  After walking one can even enter what one eats to track nutrition stats.

Before the walk begins, I turn the phone’s location services on, slip the phone in my pocket and get moving. At each mile increment the phone announces my pace and time. Since I'm a feedback junkie, I walk further than I would have.  Each day I try to decrease my time as I compete against myself. Whatever encourages me to move a little further is a plus.  Of course music helps one to quicken the pace.  Music travels from the smart phone, through the wires and into the ear buds attached to my head. Starting the walk with “I Like to Move It, Move It” sets the tone.   Isn’t technology amazing?

The first days of walking were tough.  Getting into the routine was easier once I learned to open my senses along the way.  I began to enjoy the warmth of the sun on my shoulders contrasting with the cool of the shade as I passed under a tree.  Mentally I measured the length of shadows as the sun rose higher and delighted in the discovery of wildflowers along the route.  Identifying the wildflowers I’d pass proved to be another trick that made the walk seem shorter. 

The imagination quickly travels into prose and trips down memory lane as a Trumpet Vine climbs skyward on a pole, tendrils reaching out in space with nowhere to grab.  Bacon and Eggs and bright yellow Buttercups grow in a ditch along the way. Does anyone remember holding a buttercup under someone’s chin to look for a yellow reflection?  If there was a reflection, your friend was supposed to like butter.  A fuzzy dandelion reminds me of the summer we picked peach baskets of the golden flowers for lady in Sharptown who made dandelion wine.  Purple Clover, pink Marsh Mallow, blue and white Chicory, orange-salmon Day Lilies and dainty white Asters catch my attention as I walk on.  Music and musings make for a delightful walk.

My goal is to do a 5K walk/run before summer ends.  Since 5K equals to 3.1 miles, the goal is within site.  The weight added prior to the doctor’s visit has been lost along with a couple of extra pounds.  My husband ever the jokester, suggested that we didn’t need a scale.  He said that all we had to do was to measure the waterline of the boat.  If the waterline is higher when we move back on in the fall then I obviously was successful in my quest.  Ha! Ha!

It’s nearing the end of year three of our two-year plan to live aboard Imagine.  It looks as if there will be a year four ahead.  Currently I am enjoying being land bound for a while.  I’ll keep on walking and enjoying each moment before land and floors once again give way to seas and decks.  

Landbound for a While

We're definitely not in Kansas anymore... nor are we at sea living on Imagine.  A weekend trip to visit daughter, Suzanne and husband Mike, on the farm in Telford, PA became a study in urban sprawl and traffic jams.  While they live secluded on the nine acre farm where they raise horses, goats and chickens, the trip there and back makes me want to head back to the sea.


Cars zoom down the windy road and blind curves that lead to the farm.   Getting out of the driveway calls for full attention.  Toll booths and traffic backups are to be expected on the trip that should only take about an hour and 15 minutes.  Today we spent nearly an hour in a traffic jam that turned the highways in to northbound and southbound parking lots.   After stop, go and rest for nearly an hour we discovered the cause.


Rubbernecking. Six cars were pulled to the side of the road while two Pennsylvannia State Troopers stood taking statements from some of the drivers of the the pile-up.  There were some bent fenders and frustrated looking motorists standing by their cars in the 95 plus degree weather.


Amazing... as soon as we passed, traffic sped up to above the speed limit.  On the northbound side cars remained parked in their two lane parking as we moved south.  Nearing Chester, traffic slowed again... no surprise there.  Inside the car the grandchildren napped.  We finally arrived home nearly two and a half hours after we left the farm.


I can describe many adventures about sailing.  We've yet to run into a traffic jam... unless one counts the backup at the drawbridges as boats line up in queue waiting for the bridge to open.

June Calls Us Home

It’s late June and the majestic Queen Anne’s Lace stands regally along the roadside.  It rises out of the ditches surrounded by soft light blue streams of chicory.  Orange day lilies bow and sway as a car zooms past.  Rows of bright green corn with newly emerged tassels stand sentry in the background.  If one looks closely one can spot nearly ripened wild blackberries growing in more tangled areas. The flora signals summertime has arrived. It signals the time of year that the Sparks clan to head towards Sharptown and to the home where they were raised. 

This year all have returned to the nest.  My sisters are here, all six of them and also my two brothers.  If one is counting, that makes nine.  The siblings have arrived from North Carolina, Indiana, Pennsylvania, Delaware, and Connecticut. Four siblings have remained in Salem County and didn't have far to go. The roomy Sharptown home where they were raised waits for them as does Mom and Dad. Michael, the youngest sibling, is now 45.  I tip out on the other end, the oldest, at 56.  Our children range from six to 36. There are 23 grandchildren and 11 great grandchildren. The big house fills with laughter and noise. It is full again for a while.

Sparks Family 2012

The Sparks kids have not been children for a long time. But when we come together, we are children in spirit.   We laugh at the old times.   When grandson Ian, who is 29, catches a garter snake curled in the wheel well of sister Alice’s Indiana van, we share memories with the younger generation; of the time that Mom was driving down the road and a mouse crawled out of the fur collar of her coat.  Believe me there was a lot of screaming in the car that day and it wasn’t only Mom.

We share memories of pulling weeds in the garden and selling strawberries in front of the house.   We remember going muskrat trapping with Dad and helping him to skin and stretch the aquatic rats.  In the summer we would all jump into the back of Dad’s old pickup truck and head to Ocean City for the day.   The nine of us would ride in the back along with Judy Price, Susan, Bruce and Stephan Foster.   It was what people did back then.   There were no cars seats or seatbelt laws.  The wind would blow through our hair and flatten our cheeks as we excitedly anticipated eating the sand sprinkled bologna sandwiches and frolicking in the waves. Of course we came home sunburned and tired, it’s a lot of work “jumping those rollies,” as Dad would say.  Sometimes, Dad would stop on the way home and would buy ice-cream cones.  I bet they hated seeing us all line up at the window.  We were far from rich, but we never did without. 

Snake Handling

Dad was a pipefitter at DuPont.  Mom was a homemaker.  In the summer we ate food fresh from the garden where we helped dad plant the corn, tie up the limas and hoe between the rows. My sister Vivian summed it up when she told Dad and Mom, “While we didn’t have much like kids today, we had parents who disciplined us.  We had parents who taught us how to work hard and to give back.  They taught us right from wrong.  “I had a childhood that is rich in experience and memories. I have the best Mom and the best Dad in the world and I could never ask for more.”   The funny thing is that all nine of us have said the same thing over the years.

I know how lucky I am.  My entire family can still gather and enjoy each other’s company.   We weigh a little more; crow’s feet have formed at the corners of our eyes. There is sometimes a little stiffness as we get up in the morning. No matter what our physical bodies look like, when we are together we are children again.  And we have one thing in common.  It is our love for each other and for our parents.  Raising children of our own has taught us all something about the challenge of parenting and what our parents sacrificed for us.

Most importantly, we still have our parents with us.   Each year we watch our parents age a little more.  Dad’s dark brown hair that lasted through his seventies is finally giving way to gray.  Mom walks more slowly and seems quieter.  She worries about Dad and he about her.  Sister Peggy’s eyes flash concern as she watches Dad walk across the yard.  She comes home a couple of times the year and the change in our parents seems more dramatic to her.   Sisters Linda, Nancy and Vivian and brother Jimmy, live nearby and check in on our parents regularly.  Brother Michael from North Carolina understands the importance of his time together with our parents.

Our family has been blessed for many years.  We are intact.  As young children we would often fight and would gather the troops.  We would convince as many of our siblings as possible to be on “our side.”  (I’m surprised none of us ever entered politics.)  We may agree to disagree on many issues, but the well being of our parents is one area that will always bring us together.   For now it is the green of late June that brings us home.   For now we enjoy and appreciate the family we have around us.  For now we watch the Queen’s Anne’s Lace nodding ever so slightly in the breeze and remember childhood bouquets of wildflowers that we would pick and arrange.   This column is dedicated to my siblings… Peggy, Jimmy, Linda, Nancy, Carol, Vivian, Alice, and Michael. I love you all.