"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

Although I agree with you both, to a point, updating your charts for a
particular route
is really not all that time consuming or hard.
In the past there was a yearly summary you could use, but doubt that is
still published.
I do see "archives" on the web site.
BG Having had to do this many times in the past for extensive routes, all
I can say is, that once
I got into it, I generally found ways to speed up the process (here,
summaries came in handy) and noted that
in reality, there wouldn't be all that many actual changes that needed to be
placed on the chart.
With today's ease of getting on line, it's even easier to correct as you go,
but an updating CD for electronic charts
sure is easy (Normal mail package for most ships, nowadays).
Since I come from the "school" where an uncorrected chart is grounds for a
hefty fine ..... going on outdated ones has never
been an option.

In article ,
Rosalie B. wrote:

I also have computer charts for these areas, which I do not print out,
but use with a GPS in the cockpit. They show me where I am, and have
the advantage that even if the buoy's are renumbered, I can still see
where I am. If buoy #36 is next to my boat, but the chart says it is
buoy #24, that's OK - I still know where I am.

*SOME*times! A few times before GPS, we did some long time-and-distance
runs where both 24 and 36 *could* have been at the far end. Navigating
further without knowing for sure would have been .... "interesting".

One time we were shooting for #1 on Onancoke, which was listed having a
bell.

We fetched a #1 with no bell after 4 boisterous hours.

Where the heck WERE we?

The next hour or so was more stressful than the previous 4 over open
water because I had to depend upon my having done things right, not my
usual first assumption.

Turned out that the bell had been removed the previous week, while we
were cruising, so there's no way we could have gotten the update.

--
Jere Lull
Xan-a-Deux ('73 Tanzer 28 #4 out of Tolchester, MD)
Xan's Pages: http://members.dca.net/jerelull/X-Main.html
Our BVI FAQs (290+ pics) http://homepage.mac.com/jerelull/BVI/

Jere Lull wrote:

In article ,
Rosalie B. wrote:

I also have computer charts for these areas, which I do not print out,
but use with a GPS in the cockpit. They show me where I am, and have
the advantage that even if the buoy's are renumbered, I can still see
where I am. If buoy #36 is next to my boat, but the chart says it is
buoy #24, that's OK - I still know where I am.

*SOME*times! A few times before GPS, we did some long time-and-distance
runs where both 24 and 36 *could* have been at the far end. Navigating
further without knowing for sure would have been .... "interesting".

One time we were shooting for #1 on Onancoke, which was listed having a
bell.

We fetched a #1 with no bell after 4 boisterous hours.

Where the heck WERE we?

The next hour or so was more stressful than the previous 4 over open
water because I had to depend upon my having done things right, not my
usual first assumption.

Turned out that the bell had been removed the previous week, while we
were cruising, so there's no way we could have gotten the update.

That's where computer charts would help. Because if the little boat
on the screen was next to that buoy on the screen, then you would know
you were in the right place - bell or no bell.

In 2000, the first time we went down the ICW, we came into the
Piankatank River, and anchored in Fishing Bay behind Stove Point
Neck. This is a popular anchorage, with room for a lot of boats
without them having to be too close together and has good protection
from the north, east and west. When we went in, we could not find a
number of the marks, and when we left the next morning the CG boat was
replacing some of them.

We met a guy who was there the day before us who didn't have computer
charts and he had run aground a couple of places. Even though we had
never been there before, we knew where we were close enough that we
could avoid that.


grandma Rosalie

In article ,
Rosalie B. wrote:

One time we were shooting for #1 on Onancoke, which was listed
having a bell. We fetched a #1 with no bell after 4 boisterous
hours. Where the heck WERE we?

The next hour or so was more stressful than the previous 4 over open
water because I had to depend upon my having done things right, not
my usual first assumption.

Turned out that the bell had been removed the previous week, while
we were cruising, so there's no way we could have gotten the update.

That's where computer charts would help. Because if the little boat
on the screen was next to that buoy on the screen, then you would
know you were in the right place - bell or no bell.

These days, I have the GPS's light list which serves well enough for my
work. I've stopped and plotted our exact spot a couple of times, though.
(Bloodsworth always gives me conniptions.)

BUT sometimes the computer gets splashed, the GPS won't grab a signal,
or something else gets in the way. That's when recent charts are handy.
(I agree that my example is relatively unusual, BTW)

When they renumbered the Bay's markers, I made sure to get the most
recent chart book just before we ventured out of our normal cruising
area.


--
Jere Lull
Xan-a-Deux ('73 Tanzer 28 #4 out of Tolchester, MD)
Xan's Pages: http://members.dca.net/jerelull/X-Main.html
Our BVI FAQs (290+ pics) http://homepage.mac.com/jerelull/BVI/