EAVESDROPPING – Janice Anne Wheeler, Sparring With Mother Nature
Another week, another season sails by. I hope your passages are all grand! Every day, in every way, our health, our environment, winds, weather and sunshine, we all SPAR WITH MOTHER NATURE. Thanks for staying aboard. Thanks for staying aboard. ~J
“BAD BECKY, BAD BECKY, BAD BECKY this is Naval Aircraft Command.” It was a steamy, sunny, late-summer morning. “Who was that hailing?” I asked my Sailor, a tad rhetorically, really just emphasizing that in our thankfully peaceful part of the seas we don’t expect such a title to come across the airwaves at all, especially in such a, well, commanding manner. We had seen the military helicopter circling overhead, but that is not a rarity so close to Norfolk, Virginia, home of an array of US military establishments. But neither of us, the Sailor has been around the region for fifty years, has ever heard the Naval Aircraft Command part. WAIT! Please allow me to interrupt this story to tell you WHY we are listening to this convo. STEADFAST was under full sail for the first time since May 1, 2024 after 850 days of NOT sailing. When you live on a sailboat, that’s a tremendous amount. She did great and I remembered all the important stuff, including crucial provisions (cheese, rum, coffee, wine), when to duck, and how to tie knots. 
I can hardly express how happy I was, so I’ll just inset the photo below. You’ll know.
OK, back to our eavesdropping tale…Our primary VHF radio, tuned to channel 16, crackled again. It was Naval Aircraft Command asking the other end of the conversation, which we could not hear, to change to channel 12. Intrigued, amused, we changed our second VHF from the local bridge and Watermen traffic to 12. Is it eavesdropping? Absolutely. And I highly recommend it.
If you are a new boater or simply an unaware and beloved landlubber, please understand that many/most vessels will follow a conversation to the channel indicated, remotely interesting (or not) to see what’s going on. It’s a cultural thing, a way to pass the time, and can be informative, surprising, amusing, or none of the above. The next transmission on 12 from Naval Aircraft Command was all of the above, partly due to the name of the vessel that had rumbled into a US NAVY training exercise using live ammunition. (!!) 
Chart credit ADC Maps. “BAD BECKY you have entered a Live Fire Exercise Area, please proceed to course 210 two-one-zero for two miles. Do not proceed any further east. How copy?” Reminder, STEADFAST can only hear the Commander in the helicopter because the Live Fire Exercise Area was miles down the rather busy Chesapeake Bay. That exchange ended only to begin again within minutes, “BAD BECKY this is Naval Aircraft Command.” Pause. “You remain within the boundaries of the Live Fire Exercise. Please change your course to 220 for two miles. How copy?” There was a silence, and, “Thank you for your cooperation, Captain.” Another vessel was similarly directed to avoid the Live Fire Area. And another. And another. Then BECKY got really BAD. “BAD BECKY, channel 12.” Pause. “BAD BECKY you are still within the active zone of the Live Fire Exercise. Please proceed to course 270 that is two-seven-zero for twenty miles. How copy?” Pause. “What is your destination?” Pause. “Where are you going BAD BECKY? You are within the confines of a Live Fire Exercise that will last until 1pm. Please proceed immediately on course 270 for twenty miles. Do not proceed any further east. How copy?” That was the last we heard of her. Third time’s a charm. I searched the internet and found BAD BECKY. She’s a fast, sexy sportfishing vessel complete with tuna scoping tower and can be had for a cool 1.5M USD, if anyone’s interested. 
Charleston-based BAD BECKY couldn’t stay outside the lines. Screenshots MacGregor Yachts sale site. VHF chatter for the next three hours was frequent, astonished boaters complying for the most part to the booming voice in the sky. Of course, the name of the vessel added to our substantial amusement of the situation, but I found it rather amazing, regardless of your lean, that the US Navy schedules target practice with live ammunition right off the main channel in the Chesapeake Bay, the standard route for Baltimore, one of the busiest shipping ports on the East Coast of North America, from 9am-1pm. Let’s hope all those shooters had previous practice and were pretty well honed in! For my part, I think I would have high-tailed it in the direction indicated when someone calling themselves Naval Air Command told me I was entering a live shooting zone, but to each his own….our top speed is eight knots, and BAD BECKY can probably top 40. On the topic of military encounters, here’s a flashback for you—STEADFAST stumbled into a US Navy Submarine at the surface of the Western North Atlantic, pretty far from anywhere, just sailing along. We had just overtaken another vessel and caught dinner dragging a line off the transom. I was on the back deck with a very sharp knife when my Sailor’s voice went up an octave. “That’s a submarine!” Clearly, it was not sub-marine. I whirled to peer in the direction of his pointing finger just as a booming voice came over channel 16. Seriously. Booming. Like OZ, even, if you’ve seen that 1939 classic about tornadoes, witches and glittery slippers. My compatriot Peter Swanson, the LOOSE CANNON wrote our 2023 Submarine story more than a year before I decided to create SPARRING and join the fun on SubStack. Take a look; if you read far enough you’ll discover that we had a Japanese racing pigeon make himself at home on our teak decks for a few weeks that same spring. Someday I’ll make ‘Herman’ into the next hero of children’s literature; he flew 9,000 miles, to windward, no less, just because he wanted to see what happened next… just like we do. LOOSE CANNON Returning to the Chesapeake from a season in the Bahamas, the crew of Steadfast was sailing in the Gulf Stream when they came across something unusual and a bit startling. About 600 feet away a periscope was churning the water. Moments later, the sail of… 3 years ago · 7 likes · 8 comments · Peter Swanson
LOOSE CANNON This story was originally published in March 2023. Writer-chef Janice Anne Wheeler now has her own nautical Substack newsletter called Sparring With Mother Nat… 9 months ago · 13 likes · 15 comments · Peter Swanson Stay safe out there my friends, and eavesdrop if it’s prudent! Have a peaceful, sane week. ~J Think my work is share-worthy? I hope so. Easiest way— hit the re-stack circle below right or pick one of your fine friends and pay it forward, forward, forward. Thanks. Really. Huge gratitude from me for just reading these words. Yay us! We connect, personally, in a time when that’s not all that easy or simple or common. Cheers. ~J Share SPARRING WITH MOTHER NATURE More unnecessary blather on VHFs. Not long ago I wrote a story about tuning in and tuning out channel 16. It is a mandatory, international emergency, distress and hailing frequency. In the following story, a giant yacht decided it wasn’t mandatory, and while there was a happy ending in spite of that, I hope a lesson got learned.
I so appreciate your support of my work. Have a wonderful week!
© 2026 Janice Anne Wheeler
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