While ENS has a lot of power, and certainly can clarify confusing situations, it also can be a hazard. There are the oft discussed issues of accuracy. But I'm more concerned about reliability and the results of what happens when it stops working. If you rely on it regularly, your "manual" navigation skills will deteriorate. When the ENS (when, not if) goes TU in a tense situation, how long will it take you to make heads or tails of what is around you and how it relates to the chart, once you've found it. For those that frequently cruise in local, or even regional waters, I think ENS makes sense because you already have a basic familiarity with what's around you. But for voyagers who will be traveling to areas without electronic charts, I think you're better off not having used ENS for those areas where charts are available. But having said the above, I'm still not certain that I won't have ENS when we depart next year cruising the western seaboard of North America. Maybe I'll have it as a back up. Our last boat had a very good chart plotter (granted, not ENS) but I still found that I used the paper charts for most of my navigation and used the platter as a check point to my manual plotting. Jim McCorison M/V Maana Seattle, WA