Canadian Coast Guard Auxiliary Unit 20
They didn’t normally venture out in their boat after dark but the weather was fine and they were having a great time at Ganges so the day wore on unnoticed.  The result was a more risky night voyage back to home to Browning Harbour.  The man and the women had both taken the Power Squadron basic boating course and so were comfortable reading charts both paper and electronic.  In addition to their GPS chart plotter, they had local knowledge having been on the same route many times in daylight.
They safely made it through Captains Passage and saw the lights on Nose Point and Peile Point and as they entered Tincomali Channel the distant lights of a vessel appeared through the murky darkness.  The man could see the red and green navigation lights that showed the vessel was approaching but couldn’t understand the meaning of the three vertical white lights above.  Fortunately the woman had taken an advanced seamanship course and explained to him that what he was looking at was a tug and tow over two hundred meters.  As they approached Swanson Channel they could see a southbound ferry exiting Active Pass.  The woman knew that ferries were over 50 meters in length and so as well as displaying the red and green port and starboard lights there was a white masthead light and another white light forward and lower.
As they made their way across the dark choppy waters of Swanson Channel the man saw another vessel.  Again it displayed the usual red and green navigation lights but this one also displayed a red light above the white masthead light.  Doubting she new the answer he said “OK wise woman tell me what type of vessel that is”.  Through the gloom the man thought he saw doubt on the woman’s face but then she said with confidence “surely if you call yourself a fisherman you should be able to recognize the lights of a vessel conducting fishing operations”.  The man decided to keep quiet for the remainder of the trip.
All of the lighting configurations included in this article and many more can be found in Transport Canada’s Collision Regulations and is available on the web at www.tc.gc.ca/eng/marinesafety/tp-tp10739-part-c-2823.htm.  Part C contains information on the lights that vessels must display between sunset and sunrise.  The configurations depend on the type of vessel and the activities that are being undertaken.  Unfortunately the above named document is only text with no images and so careful reading is necessary to understand various configurations.  However an interpretation is available at West Marine in the form of a series of lighting configurations and the corresponding Collision Regulation rule references shown side by side.  The Quick Guide “Rules of the Road and Running Light Patterns” is in the form of a plasticized 8-panel document that folds into the size of a road map.