Charts for Mexico

[bazzer]

Can anyone point me in the right direction as to where to find charts for Baja Mexico and the Sea of Cortez? I would prefer vector charts but any will do.
Secondly, does NOAA have vector charts for California?

[wdkester]

Originally Posted by bazzer

Can anyone point me in the right direction as to where to find charts for Baja Mexico and the Sea of Cortez? I would prefer vector charts but any will do.
Secondly, does NOAA have vector charts for California?

Check out www.nauticalcharts.noaa.gov

also

OpenCPN User Manual | Official OpenCPN Homepage

[jeremiason]

Originally Posted by bazzer

Can anyone point me in the right direction as to where to find charts for Baja Mexico and the Sea of Cortez? I would prefer vector charts but any will do.
Secondly, does NOAA have vector charts for California?

I am sure your are aware of it, but just in case...

Charts for Mexican Waters can be off as much as a 1/2 nautical mile.

Many of the Mexican Charts have not been updated in 100 years, especially in the Sea of Cortez.

During our time in Mexico, we were using Navionics Gold Charts and found them very accurate in areas of commercial maritime traffic, but off in areas not well traveled, especially in the Sea of Cortez!

Radar overlay seemed to balance this out, but a few times we found uncharted islets or islands charted in the wrong place or depth soundings way off, again especially in the Sea of Cortez....

[setmefree]

Hi,

Did you ever find downloadable Mexican Charts that could be used with OpenCPN? Also looking for South Pacific Charts........

Thanks,

Joe
S/V Set Me Free
Puerto Vallarta

[bobconnie]

There are Mexican Naval Charts available if ya can find them !! They are good charts, made in the last 20 yrs or so ! I copyied some from another cruiser for the eastern gulf parts of mexico, and have found them to be much much better then the 100 yr old charts that most of us have available!! don't know where he got them but Im sure someone on here knows how to get them ! just a thought

[Mexdon]

When I was operating my dive boat in Manzanillo I got my charts from the FUERZA NAVAL DEL PACIFICO offices. I would imagine it would be the same in Puerto Vallarta or any other major Mexican port.

[Mexdon]

These were paper charts ans were quite accurate, at least for finding reefs to dive on.

[susswein]

I've been cruising the sea of cortez for four years, and I have yet to find accurate electronic charts. Instead, I'm using the satellite imagery downloaded from digitalglobe onto my handheld GPS. I've found it to be incredibly accurate, and in most cases I can even discern between sandy and rocky bottoms down to about 25' of depth. They're also much cheaper than electronic charts; unlimited worldwide downloads only cost me $40.

[oystercatcher]

not sure about baja mexico charts

noaa does have vector charts for california but not all areas are covered as their priority
seems to be harbours and shipping lanes.

ENC Downloads

[sailias]

Originally Posted by susswein

I've been cruising the sea of cortez for four years, and I have yet to find accurate electronic charts. Instead, I'm using the satellite imagery downloaded from digitalglobe onto my handheld GPS. I've found it to be incredibly accurate, and in most cases I can even discern between sandy and rocky bottoms down to about 25' of depth. They're also much cheaper than electronic charts; unlimited worldwide downloads only cost me $40.

Thats a good source. Just went to the site and checked it out. Purchasing seems a bit complex. Can you provide a brief overview of how you purchased their stuff and how you manipulated the images to get them into your gps.

Best and kind regards

/ch

[susswein]

it's actually pretty simple. You buy a subscription to digitalglobe from the vendor of your particular GPS brand. I know that both Delorme and Garmin offer it; you'll have to check on others. Here's the link for Garmin:

https://buy.garmin.com/shop/shop.do?pID=70144&ra=true

For $30 you can get unlimited downloads for one year. Over the course of 2 evenings I was able to download the entire sea of cortez to my PC. Once it's on the PC you can download at will to your compatible garmin, based on the amount of memory in the GPS, of course. The one caveat is that the maps are locked to a single GPS receiver, so if your GPS dies you'll have to go through the process all over again. One nice thing about the maps is that you can seamlessly combine different resolututions and it'll use the appropriate image as you zoom in and out. For example, I downloaded the low resolution maps of the entire sea, and then the high resolution maps of every anchorage.

[Sailorman Ed]

Thanks Susswein - a very interesting resource at a reasonable cost. You mentioned that it is locked to a single GPS receiver - will it also work with a GPS puck?
And do you know if it will work with the older GSMap 76 series? What actually shows the the GPS screen?
Ed

[susswein]

I don't think it'll work with a GPS puck. If you follow the link I included there's a link to a list of which models are supported, and if you google "garmin digitalglobe" I pretty sure there's a video with sample screenshots.

The resolution is pretty amazing. When I'm at the dock I can look at the GPS screen and actually see the exact slip I'm in, and can identify specific boats (that were there when the image was taken).

[GrowleyMonster]

It's quite a bit of work, but you could download and convert from Google Earth, and have a map but of course no bathymetric data. The water color is a pretty good tipoff, though. Use with caution near shoal areas and coastlines!