As above, thankyou Dan, Chuck, Bob and others for your advice on GPS units. There's nothing like getting the good oil from someone who has 'been there, done that'! Dan's critique of the Etrex was revelatory. Here in Oz this unit seems to be the GPS of choice for kayakers, no doubt because of its alleged waterproofness and small size. Yep, there sure is a difference between navigating in the bush and navigating at sea. Perhaps one day there will be enough kayakers in the world to attract a Garmin or a Lowrance etc to make a marine-biased unit designed with us in mind. That is, with simple features for navigation, and chart download, with data able to be clearly displayed and easily managed through a dry bag. But that Garmin 76 sure looks a good buy. I don't know whether WAAS will be, or is applicable in the South Pacific area, or whether manufacturers like Garmin 'regionalise' their factory software. It must be nice to have US tide tables, but only if you are in the US! Perhaps another Paddlewiser Downunder can enlighten me. David, are you out there in SAR HQ? I was attracted to Lowrance because of their compatibility with Navionics Echarts, which are worldwide in their coverage. Dan, do you know if the Garmin-sourced BlueCharts will have similar worldwide application? PeterR *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List - Any opinions or suggestions expressed here are solely those of the writer(s). You must assume the entire responsibility for reliance upon them. All postings copyright the author. Submissions: PaddleWise_at_PaddleWise.net Subscriptions: PaddleWise-request_at_PaddleWise.net Website: http://www.paddlewise.net/ ***************************************************************************
-----Original Message----- From: PJ Rattenbury [mailto:ratten_at_uow.edu.au] ...But that Garmin 76 sure looks a good buy. I don't know whether WAAS will be, or is applicable in the South Pacific area, or whether manufacturers like Garmin 'regionalise' their factory software. It must be nice to have US tide tables, but only if you are in the US! Perhaps another Paddlewiser Downunder can enlighten me. David, are you out there in SAR HQ? PeterR >> Hi Peter We do have some great software here for man-over-board drift plots and other SAR incidents but its big time software runing on large systems. All our charts are based on ARCinfo and Seafarer software which is very expensive. Tide charts are available on CD I see what I can found out about downloading. Cheers David *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List - Any opinions or suggestions expressed here are solely those of the writer(s). You must assume the entire responsibility for reliance upon them. All postings copyright the author. Submissions: PaddleWise_at_PaddleWise.net Subscriptions: PaddleWise-request_at_PaddleWise.net Website: http://www.paddlewise.net/ ***************************************************************************
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