Yesterday I went to a course which started the process about becoming a cox for Exmouth Gig Club. Here are a few photos from my note book.
Different types of buoys – lateral buoys: red on the left (port), green on the right (starboard) – mark the navigable channel when entering a port; cardinal markers – locating hazards and various other buoys.
How has priority on the sea and how to avoid collisions
Blasts on the horn along with spring and neap tides
The rule of twelfths and the impact of highs and lows
Buoys in the Exe Estuary
And how they really are from the Exmouth Tidetable 2017
A great day – thanks Max
A Dartmoor blog 
What a hoot! Locking up solo on the canal in my little cruiser one day, I heard 5 loud hoots from about 1/4 mile ahead; I thought it was a car on the big A road. Leaping off to close the gate behind me, I paused for a glass of water (scalding hot day) and a big steel narrowboat paused alongside. The extremely irate owner erupted. Apparently, 5 blasts of his horn meant “Leave the hrrrrrumphing gates open.” (I don’t know how many blasts would have indicated “I am about to have an apoplectic fit.”)