scott wrote in message
and when the batteries die? or your handheld gps goes overboard? or your
fixed mount has a problem with the connection to the external antenna?

You seem to not be understanding the conversation.

If your GPS reciever fails in any way then you will not be able to track
anything,
buoys or channel centerlines. Thus, your response makes no sense.

Let me try again.

If you want to find the channel using the buoys then fine, go ahead and look
outside the boat and find the buoys and use them to figure out where the
channel is. If you want to use GPS to track the location of the channel
then that is also fine. Using both is even better.

The point being made is that there is no reason to ever need to track the
buoys with the GPS. You should track the channel with the GPS, not the
buoys.



and personally i'd rather know where each edge of the channel is rater than
the center. The danger lies at the edge of the channel.


Fine, make two lines down the edges instead of one line down the center.
GPS is quite flexible in that way.






"Ted" wrote in message


This sounds like a great time for a mild philosophical rant about the
role
of buoys during marine navigation with GPS.

Buoys were invented to help skippers find and stay in the channel. GPS is
an
even better tool for helping a skipper find and stay in the channel. Why
then do GPS manufacturers show all those buoys when what boat pilots
really
want is to know where the center of the channel is? A simple route line
down
the middle of the channel with a waypoint at each turn is so much better
than a collection of a hundred obscure buoy locations. My thesis is that
marking buoys with GPS or showing buoy locations on a GPS map is a
complete
waste of time and only done by skippers trying to cling to old navigation
technology. It seems to me that channel centerlines, harbor entrances and
underwater hazards are the only things a boat captain needs to see on his
GPS. Throw all those buoy POIs away! They just clutter up your display.
I plan my yacht adventures by going to

http://map.marineplanner.com/mapping...chartindex.cfm

and identifying waypoints by noting the lat lon from the nautical charts
and
then making a route down the center of all the channels I intend to
navigate. I also make a proximity waypoint for any hazards I wish to
avoid
along the way. I find this to be much more useful than the marine POI
data
from Garmin.

If I was to get more serious about marine navigation then of course I
would
go out and get the Garmin Blue Charts but for now the above technique is
perfectly adequate for pleasure boating.