RE: [Paddlewise] Best pitch for owning a GPS

I rarely need a GPS for kayaking. But I like gadgets.

I used to wish for fog so I could use my unit, but it was rarely  
foggy enough that I really needed it. Usually, sounds and sights in  
the fog were enough for me to make my way with a standard chart.

I had an old unit with a very primitive map and no real chart. It was  
good enough for telling me how fast I was going and telling me how  
far I had to go etc.

Last summer, I bought the Garmin 60 X with the chart because I was  
semi-leading a group and felt an extra-level of responsibility.

I thought it would be overkill and sort of ridiculous with the little  
chart, but on a one week trip off the west coast of Vancouver it was  
useful twice.

One day we had a REALLY thick fog. In 25 years of paddling that coast  
I have run into fog this dense only one time previously. It was nice  
to be able to take a course that kept you in deep enough water to  
avoid the reefs and yet avoid going ridiculously far off-shore. You  
could still hear the surf on the beaches so you could remain oriented  
in that way but it was useful to know how far away from the coast to  
paddle to avoid incidental rocks.

Another day, it kicked up and we wanted to get off the water to a  
beach that was sheltered by a complex pattern of reefs. I have found  
that often, when you are standing on a beach, it is usually easy to  
plot a course out to the deep water, but when you are out in the deep  
water, it can be hard to plot a course back in. From the water, you  
often just see lines of overlapping breaking waves. It is hard to  
make out which ones are close and which are far so often it looks  
like there is no easy way in.

With any chart, you can see that there probably is a route that is  
free of rocks and a route that is relatively deep so that you do not  
anticipate breaking waves. But it can be hard to tell exactly where  
you are. Using Garmin with built-in chart, it was great. I could just  
steer my way in and minimize the chance I would get caught by a sneaker.

You are assuming that the chart is accurate and they generally are.  
But you have to recognize that if you are relying on every rock to be  
within 100 feet of where the GPS would put it that you might run into  
an area that the map makers were in error. These are not regions that  
commercial traffic is very interested in. So you have to stay alert.

Anyway, these two experiences really made me happy that I had the GPS  
with the "real" chart.
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