Congrats on your new boat and early expereinces on the big lake, Candlelady. I spend most of my boating time on Crystal Lake in GIW, with occasional day trips to Winni. My boat is an 18.5 ft bowrider, so I pick my days carefully. I try to avoid summer weekends and days of high prevailing winds. Before heading out I check radar, forecasts, and peruse the many webcams for current conditions and sometimes end up changing plans and saying, "not today".
I usually launch out of Ames Farm ($20/day)- they have two well maintained boat ramps, plenty of truck/trailer parking, and a store with snacks, bathroom, and Bizer maps all in one place
It's location is ideal for me for picking destinations/routes at the last minute since it is centrally located (sort of) to Wiers, Meredith, Wolfboro, and Alton. (no offense intended by leaving off the other destination towns, but I tend to avoid the more navigationally challenging areas of the lake since I don't get out there often enough)
I rely 90% on my Bizer chart and naked-eye visual landmarks, but also carry and occasionally refer to a hand-held Magellen GPS w/ US Topo base map. I purchased the Bizer waypoints file which I uploaded (via PC) to the GPS as Points-of-interest (POI). This allows me to identify numbered navaids, island and penninsula names, marina/gas locations, spars, etc onscreen and is especially (enormously) helpful at night since my binoculars are not night-vision enabled. [if I spent more time on the big lake I'd probably get a chart plotter with the winni chip as others have recommended, and maybe even night vision glasses]
Enjoy, have fun, and stick with this forum. It's a great bunch of friendly, knowledgable people, and very helpful to newbies like us.
Pier626