Daymarks and floating buoys mark the Intra Coastal Waterway, the highway we have traveled on and off for a thousand miles. Marks and buoys are a certain shape, a certain color, and a certain number, providing three chances for proper identification in varying visibility.
In this first picture you can see color and shape reasonably well:
In this picture you cannot see color or number, but you can see shape:
The two pictures above were taken within minutes of each other, one forward and one aft. The sun is ahead of us. The marks ahead are backlit making color and number difficult to see until they are very near.
To make things challenging, marks and buoys along the ICW also have a waterway designator. See the yellow triangles in the pictures below. They confirm these are waterway marks, and they tell you which they are by shape. The yellow designator could also be square in shape. All is simple when the mark shape and waterway designator shape are the same, as in the first picture. When they are different shapes like in the second picture it gets complicated. This might be the case where the ICW follows or intersects creeks, inlets or rivers. The second picture indicates both the left edge of the Beaufort River off Port Royal Sound, when returning, and the right edge of the ICW, when returning, hence the different shapes.
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