Years ago when my mother was young she tells me that there was no TV and that people sat around the FM radio on Sunday nights after dinner and listened to the stories and music that issued forth from that amazing invention. Still later, in my childhood I remember the telephone lines in Alaska being “party lines”.

For cruisers the VHF radio, while often a powerful tool for communication and safety is also a suitable substitute for the combined purpose of the FM radio and telephone “party line” style. For those of you to young to remember the old radio or party line phone system (or to stubborn to admit you remember it), I’ll refresh you.

The FM radio used to have weekly programs like “The Shadow Knows” and others for entertainment purposes, whole families would (as I’m told) sit around and listen in amazement and amusement as the stories unfolded.

The local house phone came a little later and the first iteration of that invention involved multiple houses on the same phone line. If you were lucky enough to have a phone at home it was likely that you shared the line with others on your block or in your area. This, I remember was sometimes somewhat amusing and could be, from time to time rather annoying.

The party line phone worked like this. Each of 3-4 families, depending on the area, shared the same phone wires. Lines went to each house but none were to just one house. When a call came in to your house it would ring a “special” ring that indicated that the call was for you. At other times when a call was for your neighbor it would ring as well but “their” ring rather than yours. If you had a particularly nosey neighbor there was nothing to stop them from picking up on your incoming call and listening in, thus the “party line”. In fairness, even if you weren’t a nosey neighbor it was impossible to tell whether there was a party on the line without picking it up and listening in.

The VHF is in many ways a combination of these two historical pieces of techknowlegy. In the cruiser community, especially where the cruisers dot the anchorage like here in Georgetown, the VHF is on on most boats virtually all the time. The hailing frequency varies from anchorage to anchorage but for all intents and purposes it is the “phone” of the cruisers. It is also, most definitely a party line. Don’t for a moment be lulled into thinking that this is any way a private form of communication.

As a result the VHF is also a never-ending source of entertainment and, as with the radio stories of old, new and interesting stories unfold each night on the VHF. Some of the funnies ones unfold without our meaning to listen in as this one did.

When calling another boat rather than a ring there is a boat name and the hail goes, “Passages, Passages, Passages this is Taua”. The hailed boat responds “Taua, this is Passages, switch to 69” to indicate the channel that the conversation is meant to continue on (this is done to keep the hailing channel clear for hailing and with the intent of some assurance of privacy) the later is a flagrant and blatant exaggeration as everyone on the radio is equally able to switch to 69 or any other channel named.

Last night we had the radio on, after dinner as it happened to be and on a Sunday night just to make the story better, when a boat called Independence hailed a boat called Lost Marbles. So the hail went, “Lost Marbles, Lost Marbles, Lost Marbles, this is Independence”. Lost Marbles came back, Independence, this is Lost Marbles how you doing?” Independence doing the “right” thing responded, “Pick a channel” to which Lost Marbles said “Okay”. For about thirty seconds there was radio silence as Independence waited for Lost Marbles to communicate the channel he’d picked. Lost Marbles, however, had already changed to the channel he’d picked and was happily awaiting the continued conversations there.

After about 30 seconds the poor boat Independence (who was also now lost) came on again, “Lost Marbles. Pick a channel? Lost Marbles, Lost Marbles?” The kids and I dissolved into giggles. This I assure you is better than standup.

Within a couple of minutes, Lost Marbles, realizing that no one had joined him on the channel he’d picked came back to the original channel and sheepishly shared the channel he’d picked with Independence (and the rest of us) so as to continue the “party” conversation.