Nope. I like the idea of going buoy to buoy so that I can actually see how
I'm doing. When the fog's thick you can't see the buoys from the center of
the channel. Big ships that are constrained by draft have to stay in the
channel, a little boat like mine can run along the edge.
And in case you're wondering, yes, I've been in fog like that several times.
We slow down, hoist a radar reflector, turn on the nav lights, sound the
horn as required and use radar, GPS, and as many eyeballs as we have for
lookout. We always have a chart in use at the helm station - we normally
navigate using buoys and landmarks, and know where we are. An option would
be to get out of the channel and drop anchor - in most places I could beach
the boat. We've never thought it was necessary to do that.

"Ted" wrote in message
k.net...

William G. Andersen wrote in message ...
I've got several routes loaded in my Garmin eTrex Mariner; some down the
middle of the channel and some going from NavAid to Navaid.
Some say you shouldn't use a NavAid as a waypoint. Well, first, I always
have a lookout and second, when relying on radar and GPS to navigate I'm
going slow, and even slower when approaching objects.



what good is a route that you can't follow because you will hit the buoys?

did you make a route to the buoys because for some reason a route down the
center of the channel was too much trouble to make?