"mickey" wrote:

[btw, I do have a mac, so thanks for the tip. Note the ENC charts are
free to download, so the cd you are geting is more of a convenience
bundle.]

The problem is that there are so MANY different locations to get
updated. If you are actively cruising, it is difficult (or at least
it is for me) to keep up with all of the different areas.

I agree with this. It's not hard to deal with, but it requires a lot
of due dilligence. I am not a full-time cruiser--I go on trips once a
year. I would have to either:

1) get all charts early on, and update constantly for evey possible
location where I might cruise as NM and LNM come out, or

2) update the charts needed for my cruise with all information since
the last update.

For me, either option is too much. I just came back froma trip down to
St. Mary's River, in fact (was there in June), and I admit that having
an up-to-date chat would have been helpful. But I was able to get by
quite nicely with the existing charts, a copy of Reed's, a local
cruising guide, a pair of eyes and some common sense. So this is my
option 3.

St. Mary's in Georgia or in Maryland? At first I thought Maryland
because we are right by the one in Maryland and I was going to
complain because you didn't call. But I assume GA because that's the
one with the renumbered buoys, and the one in MD is pretty
straightforward with very little way to get off track.

Next year I'll try the ENC charts; those apparently are updated on-line
with NM/LNM.

I find that actually things don't change that much or that fast. And
if they do, there's a discussion about it in various places. So
Isabel did change some of the ICW and there was shoaling but it was
extensively discussed, so if you were paying attention you'd know
about that. That's why we went offshore almost the whole trip coming
up from Florida that spring.

And the hurricanes impacted the east coast of FL last hurricane
season, and we saw evidence of that in the marinas, but again it was
extensively discussed.

And in other areas of the world, cruisers share information by radio
VERY extensively.

Like in the Alligator River where they've added buoys around a shoal.
I'm not very sympathetic to the power boat that waked me that goes
charging down the river without noticing the new buoys and goes hard
aground.

You ran into that guy too? The irony in this is that, when I passed
the powerboat hard aground (he also had a towboat next to him, but they
weren't doing much yet), the _powerboat_ asked _me_ to slow down so I
wouldn't wake him and damage his stern gear!

I think there must be more than one of them.


grandma Rosalie