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A Bright Idea

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By FRANK SARGEANT

Tribune correspondent

Published: February 8, 2009

St. Petersburg Beach angling fanatics Brad Ball, Chris Turner and Kevin Ahearn have spent many hours around the docks of Florida's west coast, and they had one common observation: The dock lights at most residences and waterfront businesses are ugly, inefficient and short-lived.

"Kevin had been working for a dock light company in Texas, and he had a lot of ideas on how they could be made better, and Brad and I agreed to back him," said Turner, who manages a major marina in St. Petersburg. "What he came up with, we think, is way ahead of anything else on the market."

Turner said most dock lights, because they are mounted above the water, attract bugs by the thousands in Florida's usually warm climate. And lights above the water don't penetrate very far below the surface. For those who install the lights primarily to attract gamefish - snook and trout swarm to strong lights most of the year - getting enough light into the water to pull in the shrimp and glass minnows that attract the fish can be an issue.

If lights are mounted low over water, they are subject to being hit by docking boats and to flooding on extreme storm tides. Most are not waterproof and must be replaced when saltwater gets inside. And most create lots of surface glare, making it difficult to spot fish.

"Kevin's concept was that we build a waterproof light and put it right down there with the fish, and that's how DeepGlow was born," said Turner, the son of Gene Turner, the conservationist widely credited with restoring west coast king mackerel populations.

The early test models brought some interesting surprises.

"The lights shining up instead of down silhouetted every fish from bottom to top," Turner said. "And there was no glare, but the whole area around the dock took on this beautiful green glow."

The next step was to work out a way to install the lights inexpensively; hiring professional divers would drive the costs skyward, perhaps out of reach for some potential customers. So Ahearn came up with a plan for self-installation.

"Basically, he just turned them into anchors," Turner said.

By adding several pounds of ballast to the composite-coated aluminum pot that holds the light, Ahearn balanced the lights so they would nearly always land upright when tossed off the dock. All the owner had to do was throw it over the side and plug the power cord into the timer supplied in the kit.

The 150-watt metal halide lamp produces 10,000 lumens, enough to brightly illuminate a circle about 20 feet in diameter, Turner said.

"You can run up to six of these lights off one 20-amp circuit, so for a lot of people there's no need to run extra wiring for the lights," Turner said. "It's basically plug and play."

He said the bulbs will burn for about 5,500 hours, or nearly two years at eight hours per night. Because they're on the bottom, they're not affected by wind and waves, and they won't be broken by rough docking. However, Turner cautioned that installing them in water that's too shallow could expose them to being hit by the prop of deep-draft boats.

How well do the lights work? On several installations along the Intracoastal Waterway, Turner said, you could just about walk across the water on the backs of snook swarming around the DeepGlow.

They are considerably more expensive than most above-water lights at around $550 each, and replacement halide bulbs are $30 each, but apparently a lot of dock owners feel the price is right. The lights are in full production and being shipped all over the nation thanks to Internet sales.

For more information, call (727) 234-1334 or visit www.DeepGlow.com.

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