Local knowledge is fine if you have local knowledge.
You don't have to be off-shore to benefit from a chartplotter.
I found it to be invaluable on certain parts of the ICW as well. You
don't necessarily need it but at least for me there were parts that were
confusing the first time through. The chartplotter confirmed or
corrected what visual markers I was watching for and interpreting. Even
then, I still took a wrong turn once or twice.
Another part that stuck in my mind was transiting the Palmico Sound in
North Carolina. You think you are out in the middle of the ocean but in
fact the water can be very shallow. There's a channel you follow
but unless you are constantly looking back at the last channel marker
you passed and then looking for the next one coming up, it's easy to
find your depth alarm going off as you move out of the channel. Again,
the chartplotter helped a lot.
There are plenty of places even in Chesapeake Bay where water depth
suddenly disappears even if you are a significant ways offshore. That
was also true in the ICW in northern Florida, where the deep part of the
channel was very narrow, narrow enough to put you on the mud if a pusher
barge was coming your way and you had to move to avoid it. A
chartplotter and depth finder are necessities. Now, to get from one
point to another in Chesapeake Bay, well, it's pretty easy without any
electronics.
I am familiar enough with Cape Cod Bay, the Cape Cod Canal and most of
Buzzard's Bay that I could navigate without charts or chartplotters in
the daytime. Going through Wood's Hole to get out to the Vineyard or
Nantucket can be dicey for the inexperienced though. The first time I
did it with the Navigator I noticed the ferry that runs from New Bedford
out to Martha's Vineyard was approaching at the same time I was. I just
slowed down and let it enter first ... and then just followed it
through. There are two narrow channels you can take halfway through.
Between them is a big pile of rocks. Every year you hear of at least
one boat that ran up on them, punching holes in the hull. I'd see them
every summer at Kingman Yacht Center where they would be towed, hauled
and repaired.
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