we have two

Posted by Charlie Jones on Sep 23, 2006

A Garmin 76 and a 72. We use them on our 25 foot sloop when traveling. The 72 is the back up when we are offshore. We will each have on when using our kayaks ( not CLC boats) in primitive areas. Me for fishing and her for photographing wild life for her art work ( she's a professional artist- www.griffithart.com)

Both will connect to our laptop via a aftermarket cable. My wife researched and found a combo cable for $49 that provides both power from a cig lighter outlet AND a connection to the port on the laptop. With the new free down loadable charts from NOAA and the free reader ( Fugawi I think) she can load a chart and down load trips - showing our exact route on the chart. Then save the down load and you can see where you were on a particular trip. It'll even show the tacks we made during the sail.

My stepson has been using the 72 while riding a bike. He uses it to give him mileage and speed, but can also see his path on the computer screen once he returns.

Basically the laptop or the large computer here at the house, act like chart plotters.

IF the charts for your area are available, your wife could not only make a note of where the wildlife was with the waypoint function, but also SEE it on a map. If you are close to the coast there should be a chart. Otherwise it won't work like that, but it's still neat because she can see how far away form home she was EXACTLY. Also how far she went to get to the spot. Like distance from launch to waypoint ( wild life)

In Response to: Kayak and GPS by Alan Speakman on Sep 23, 2006

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