Charts? Who Needs Charts? (From The Captain)

When we turned east up the St. Lawrence River, I noticed something strange with the chart plotter.  It seemed that there was chart data for the US side of the US/Canadian border, but no such data for the Canadian side of the border.  This is not a good discovery to make when you are only one day away from crossing the border.  See the left side of the chart plotter below.  We are in the Bay of Quinte approaching the town of Trenton, ON, Canada, which is the starting point of the Trent-Severn Waterway.

                                   Chart Plotter (Left Side) Showing No Data For Our 
                                   Location In Canada.  Right Side Shows Bottom 
                                   Sounder, We Are In 17.9 Feet Of Water.

Two hundred and forty miles to the west, and after 45 locks, the Trent-Severn Waterway dumps you out in the Georgian Bay which is part of Lake Huron.  After pondering this problem for a moment or two, it occurred to me that Tug LeeLoo was formerly a Florida / Bahamas boat.  So the "chip" in the chart plotter covers the East Coast of the US plus the Bahamas.

No worries.  I called the local West Marine store (about 30 miles away by rental car) and they informed me that they had chart chips including Canada that would work with my 2005 vintage Raymarine chart plotter.  And it would cost us just $215.  So off we went to the West Marine store.

As a quick aside, chart chips are sold in plastic boxes about the same size as a CD or DVD.  And there are multiple warnings on the package that once the package is opened, you can't return it to the store where you purchased it.  Like with CDs and DVDs, I think the concern is that someone will purchase the chart chip, copy its contents to a jump drive, and then attempt to return it to the store where it was purchased for a refund.

We returned to the boat and attempted to install the chip in the chart plotter and nothing happened.  Nothing!  A quick visit to the Navionics website seemed to suggest that the chip was compatible with my chart plotter.  Of course there was a footnote that indicated that I needed the most recent software level in my chart plotter.  I believe I do, but there is no way, well, no easy way to determine what the latest software level is.  Recall, this is a 2005 piece of equipment and it's not likely that Raymarine continues to support it in any kind of affirmative way.  

Thankfully, Nancy had the foresight to call the West Marine store to tell them that the chart chip would not work in our chart plotter and that we wanted our money refunded.  Amazingly, the person at the West Marine store agreed to refund our money.  Why?  I don't know, given the warnings on the package.  But they agreed to do this, so off we went the next morning to return the uncooperative chart chip.

So, what chart plotter will we use?  It has always been our practice to, in addition to the chart plotter, have our iPad running a different marine charting program, one that has crowd-sourced information about marinas, anchorages, and warnings about different types of hazards that may be nearby.  Typically we have this app running on two iPads, but our oldest iPad was recently brain dead (since resuscitated).   So, in order to have a reliable backup for this critical app, we decided to stop by the local Best Buy and purchase a new (third) iPad.  Now if iPad #1 dies again, we'll have two chart sources.

The screen below shows the location of the boat in the same place as on the chart plotter in the photo above.  Much better information and detail.  Wouldn't you agree?

                                   Garmin Blue Chart Mobile App Running on an iPad