Electronic nagigation

[d0ug]

Electronic navigation when I first started sailing on lake Erie my goad was to sail the Caribbean that was about 14 years ago. Starting out and not being an expert I needed all the help I could get. I bought a laptop and found a program called [The Cap’n 2.0] at that time I was the only person in the harbor or maybe the north shore with electronic navigation. And charts for lake Erie did not exist in time Maptech came out with one for the south shore. When I retired I headed south and had all the charts for the inter coastal waters way and much of the Caribbean. I had updated to the latest version by then. It turned out to be a blessing in some parts of the inter coastal in is hard to see the right buoys and markers especially if there was fog or rain. In some of the sounds the buoys number had changed so the paper charts were not right. I also could make notations on the charts in the computer of any changes in the waterway. By the time I reach the Bahamas another problem started showing up was the charts for the Bahamas were very poor for example on time at Eluthera Island after we had anchored I looked at the computer and found out that we had sailed across a airstrip, golf course and were anchored on the other side of the island.
Needless to say I made many notations on the charts. Now there is very good charts of these areas thank to cruisers that spent time and energy plotting and making maps and now there digitized for computers. One of the things I liked very much was the track that was left on the charts so I could back track over the same water if I ran into problems. When I quit sailing it seemed that everyone was using one type of computer navigation or another but all agree it was helpful. Now there are lots of computer programs out there and there are as many opinions as which is the best. I found what ever program you like stick to it.

[Benny]

Doug - Lake Erie - north shore? whereabouts

[d0ug]

I sailed out of port stanley

[Benny]

I lived in St Thomas and London for a couple of years in the 70's when i worked for Canada Trust and visited Port Stanley often - you wouldn't recognize it now - all the old stores and warehouses along the waterfront are nice boutique shops and resturants which draw a big tourist crowd. The marina is new and updated and is full to capacity. The old oil storage tanks are still there but not used much now.

If I go to the DR next year, I'll give you an email and maybe have a cool one or two together.

[d0ug]

I lived in St.Thomas and banked in Canada trust.
If your coming this way e-mail me for sure. We can talk about old times.