Quote:
Originally Posted by Phantom
It's great that you all can plug in a route and the GPS will "Auto Guide" you ..... makes me feel a lot safer that you all know where your truly going, Know the names of the Islands & landmarks your passing and understand Navigating the Lake !!
But where are you when the GPS craps out for some unexplained reason and your on the opposite side of the Lake at the end of one of your "Auto Guided" tours with your chart upside down in your hands trying to figure out where the heck am I and what exactly was that route back the GPS was gonna take me?
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Three weeks ago, I started the second day of a 400 mile, one-way cruise on unfamiliar waters with a chart plotter that had suddenly quit working. I was really glad that I had purchased paper charts and had them out and ready to use. That said, I used the paper charts to navigate to a port that had a store that sold chart plotters where I promptly exercised my credit card and roughly doubled the cost of my vacation. It's awesome to be able to navigate with paper charts, but it's vastly safer, easier and less stressful to use GPS. I use my boat solely for pleasure. Anything I can do to make it more pleasurable is a plus. I was really glad I had all the tools and supplies required to install a new chart plotter, already on board. The purchase and installation only absorbed a couple of hours at the most.