MAPPINESS IS HAPPINESS

“The church says the earth is flat, but I know that it is round, for I have seen the shadow on the moon, and I have more faith in a shadow than in the church.” ~Ferdinand Magellan

“I can see the bridge from here…how hard could it be?”  [derisive snort]  Spoken like a true amateur boater.  Well congratulations, you are helping keep fine companies like Sea Tow and BoatUS in lucrative business!

 

Someone forgot to check the nav charts!

Unless you are one of those people that never, ever ventures outside your community lake or wanders more than a mile or 2 from the boat ramp on the Intracoastal Waterway, then this gripe may not be for you.  On the other hand, you may learn a thing or two you didn’t know, with one simple tool…a map!  In the boating world, we call them navigation charts.  Learning how to read a nav chart is no different than learning how to use road maps or, more relevant to today’s trends, GPS.  Sure, you CAN get by without these…but WOW is sh*t ever so much easier and less stressful when we use these brilliant graphical devices!  Now we know how to make an effective detour, find scenic routes through National Parks, know where we might find an unexpected toll road…and if you are using a common civilian GPS it will even tell you where gas stations, restaurants, and other popular services are.  Unless you are in a mid-life crisis, and are intentionally driving around trying to get lost, learning how to understand a road atlas in kinda basic, right?

The same applies to boating.  Repetition breeds familiarity, but the growing trend among PWC riders is travel…and some of it very long distances.  And that means more time is being spent in new, untested waters.  Wouldn’t it be nice to know a little about the area before you punch the throttle and hope for the best?  I think so!

The best route between A & B is not always a straight line!

Here in the Keys, I have reasons 6 ways from Sunday to have and heavily use nav charts.  As beautiful as it is, it is surrounded by endless hazards that might not be obvious to the untrained eye.  First and foremost, the archipelago chain of islands sits in water that can range from 20 feet to 4 inches, and can change from former to latter in the blink of an eye (especially is you are ripping at 70 MPH).  Unless you have witnessed an unfortunate person running balls to the wall hit a shallow and eject over the handlebars in some sort of slow-motion, poetic cartwheel-like train wreck, then maybe this insistence about chart reading of mine doesn’t make much sense to you.  Trust me on this one.  The most valuable information you will get from charts is the depth readings.

Navigation charts are a wealth of essential information.

Then there are other hazards that the charts reveal…submerged pilings, shipwrecks in shallow water, low bridge clearances, location of marked channels to allow safe passage through an area otherwise impassable, and my least favorite…the boundaries of endless wildlife refuges, inside of which PWC are forbidden (Grrrr!).  It only takes being sited by one surly flats fisherman to have a marine patrol boat come flying across the flats, mulching up manatees with his outboards in the name of the law, to write you an expensive fine. (Yes, you are correct…this is a VERY sore spot for me!).  This could have been avoided had you studied the charts before heading out into unknown territory.  There is simply no reason to find yourself grounded on the flats, completely lost, or with a citation!

Shallow entrance into Top Secret Mangrove Lair, marked
only with a few PVC pipes installed by locals.

Then there are the fun parts about looking at the charts…like discovering little hidden spots that you would have never seen by scanning the horizon.  It is amazing how ambiguous the shoreline can look from the water.  You might be surprised to ride a mile out from the dock, turn around, and not be able to recognize where you just came from!  I cannot tell you how many cool little lagoons and mangrove creeks I have discovered by studying a combination of charts and Google Earth (I am hopelessly addicted to Google Earth).  It is one thing to see it on aerial photography…but accessibility may only be known after reviewing the charts.  As cool as it is…if it is surrounded by a quarter mile of 6” deep water at high tide, you aren’t getting in there!

Just this weekend I was out with the mission to get to a cool hiding spot that a colleague alerted me to, but after reviewing the charts, I had to carefully plan my approach due to gobs of shallow water.  The charts revealed the safest passage.  (One other note…nav charts are made of waterproof paper, so I recommend that you take them with you.  DO NOT rely 100% on your GPS, smart phone, or other electronic gadget…they break, fall in the water, batteries die.  Always have a contingency plan!  Unless your paper maps catch fire or blow away in a gail, they will always be at the ready.  And have a cheap compass on board in case you are super lost and need to take bearing measurements to navigate the old-fashioned way – another invaluable and dying skillset)  I am quite certain that if I did not research first, I would have almost definitely gotten into trouble.  Good news – I made it!  There were a few hairy spots, but at least I expected them.

Nav charts can even be social tools!  Sitting on my ski
reviewing charts yielded a new friend.  Hi, Frank!

I have one final word of advice before I stop Mother Henning about all this, but it is important.  When traveling to new, unfamiliar areas – file a float plan with someone.  Anyone.  Your spouse, your friend, your ex-wife’s brother’s cousin…let someone know what your plan is. That way if you turn up missing from the office on Monday, someone will know where to send help to get you out of the bushes you drove up into full-speed while you were drunk.  Unless they want to collect your bloated life insurance check, then maybe not!

Since I know all of you are probably already getting into your cars to drive over to West Marine to get nav charts, I will simply conclude with a random pretty picture of a random pretty island in my new playground.  Which thanks to my charts I knew I had to travel around the east side of.  Map on, Friends!