The new toy

I need to preface this with the observation that many of you probably have tools like this on board. For us, who have been using a very old Garmin hand-held most of our boating career, Arthur Clark was spot on when he said, "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." Magic indeed.

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You may remember that we got a new GPS before our last trip to the San Juan Islands. As you saw in the picture there, it came with just some low-res satellite photos to add context to the display. Well, this was infinitely more than the old hand-held did, and it was a lot of fun on the trip. But now... Now...

I purchased a data chip which plugs into the device. Now, I get a whole lot more! All the aids to navigation are located on the display, and the shoreline is now a high-res satellite image. In the closer-in views, the depth contours are shown. And if I choose, I can see a fish-eye view of our course (this is the view from our slip - that is the shoreline looming over to the right).

The accuracy is stunning. With the hi-res photos turned on, the boat icon actually overlays the blocky pixels that are actually our boat, in our slip, in the satellite photo!

Now the real challenge will begin: to continue to look out over the bow and enjoy sailing for what it is: wind, water and boat, and not let this instrument turn the experience into a video game. I can easily see how tempting this would be...