Nautical Charsts

[Marc]

Hey Guys,  Since it is getting cold here in Iowa , I think I need to think about navigation.  Is there anywhere I can get charts to take me from the Chicago River through the great lakes to the Erie Canal to NYC then down south on the ICW entering at Norfolk Va. then dow to Key West.  I went to a NOOA website and after looking at all they had to offer it would cost a small fortune for all the charts that I  need.  Has anyone done this?  Maybe I could buy their charts used or can you buy chips for GPS-fish finders?  I'm looking to leave around the middle of May 2010 so I may have to skip out on the Scoot (sob, sob).  And believe it or not the other half seems excited to go with.  Any, any help would be helpful.  Thanks in advance, Marc

[CharlieJ]

You can down load NOAA charts for free, onto your computer. There is also a test mode going on with charts set up for easy printing.

Here's the web page for NOAA charts- enjoy browsing-

http://www.nauticalcharts.noaa.gov/staff/charts.htm#POD

Here's the test site for printing chart books-

http://ocsdata.ncd.noaa.gov/BookletChart/

And here's an online chart viewer where you can look at ANY NOAA chart online.

http://www.nauticalcharts.noaa.gov/mcd/OnLineViewer.html

All for free ;D

[Marc]

Thanks Charlie, I knew (that probably you).  Would know something out there.  I'm gonna wait til I'm closer to departure before I download anything onto my laptop.  I sure would like to talk to you.. Marc

[CharlieJ]

Well, come on down. We aren't hard to find ;D

Of course it sometimes gets a TAD busy around here, but that's life :D

[AdriftAtSea]

If you download the BSB format (raster) charts, you can download SeaClear II and use that to look at the charts and do some rough trip planning.  :)

You can get SeaClear II here.

Unfortunately, SeaClear II doesn't work with the more advanced ENC vector-based charts that are now available.  For that you need a commercial package. 

[CharlieJ]

We also use Chart Navigator. I think that's the one Laura uses to set up GPS waypoints and routes, then download to the GPS. She has SeaClear II also. Uses it for different things. We have all the charts for the Gulf Coast downloaded onto the laptop, plus burned to a CD. Of course, now with the print on demand charts you can do at home,in booklet form, buying charts just may go away


We tried the ENC charts . Once. We thought they sucked. Threw the things away as soon as we could replace them. We tried them on one of our trips to Florida and return- found them to be totally useless. Much prefer the regular paper style charts you can now down load. I guess those are Raster charts.

[Amgine]

The inland river system is usually best covered by the ACoE. When I was boating on the upper Mississippi (moved away 5 yrs ago) their charts were not available via any chart seller I could find, but were available for purchase from any of their main offices.

The river chart is a large paper pack, and primarily shows the control heights and depths. For my area it was reasonably accurate, and gave me a good idea of where shoaling was going to occur, except that the river pools fluctuate seasonally so you have to keep that in mind - adding or subtracting pool height from the depths.

A nice bonus is there are a *lot* of ACoE parks and services, many of them free of charge, which are clearly marked on the charts. IME these parks are under utilized, probably because they tend to be a bit more primitive.