RE: [Paddlewise] Free Charts in Canada?

Robert Livingston said:
> a few "free" British Columbia charts of a couple of locations

Thanks for these Robert. I have hopes of getting back to Vancouver Island to
explore some of the outer coast one day - so I shall file them away. 

Your comments on the need for 'up to 12 charts' for some of the really
dynamic areas on the Washington / BC coast made me think (always painful ;-)

It got me wondering about using real-time date/time info from a GPS, to
allow the combining of tidal flow/height info (from digital tide tables /
pilots) with vector-based chart data. 

When someone gets around to making that work (and it's no more than a bit of
moderately clever software), it'll give us a real-time picture of depths,
obstacles (rocks), currents and shoreline ! 

For extra marks, put in real-time wind & swell info via 3G, with an option
for correcting the display based on boat-speed &
what-will-it-look-like-when-we-actually-get-there for a shoreline a hour or
3 away.

Using current hardware, an iPad in an Aquapac on your spray-deck might work;
but it'd be easily doable on a big screen in Craig's mutha-ship... Wouldn't
it be pretty?

Yes - I know what most of you curmudgeons are saying... about today's
navigators needing to be spoon-fed ;-)

That came into my mind, recently, while reading Cockleshell Heroes (WWII
kayak commando) and wondering why early compass makers didn't bother to
paint the North end of the needle red... On a night exercise, one of the
cockles got swung 180 degrees in overfalls and spent the rest of the
overcast night paddling South ! 

Think how they'd sneer at our deck compasses...

Best Regards
Paul Hayward, Auckland, New Zealand
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