I have a conundrum that I hope the list can resolve. We are in the Bahamas right now (Eleuthera, at the moment). For route planning we are using the paper Explorer charts, and transferring waypoints onto our PC-based plotter manually to set our routes. In order to even have the land masses in the right place, I paid a couple hundred bucks for the Navionics encrypted vector charts entitled "Bahamas" through Chartworld. (The Navionics charts are, I am sorry to say, otherwise terrible -- the bathymetry is wrong in more places than it is right.) For reasons unknown to me, the western limit of the chart cells in the package is 79°0'W, which means Bimini, Cat, and environs are not included. My plotter is forced to use the latest NOAA BSB and S57 files west of 79°, and on the NOAA charts even the poorly drawn land outlines as well as major ATONs are out of position by hundreds of feet. If anyone has a source for S57, S63, or BSB charts of Bimini, Cat, and the surrounding waters, please pass it along. I suppose an alternative would be for someone to tell me the proper datum correction to apply to the NOAA charts to have things be more or less where they are supposed to be. For the curious my plotter runs Polar View from Polar Navy (I also have OpenCPN, but the license for the Navionics charts is for the Polar View instance). And it is impractical to try to change plotting software while I am still here in the Bahamas. I do have the Jeppesen C-Map charts on my Android phone using their Plan2Nav app, so I am not completely in the dark, and I have older C-Map cartridge charts on my ancient Furuno Navnet-1 displays, but it would be nice to have realistic land outlines on our main plotter (which drives the boat) as well. -Sean m/y Vector lying Rock Sound, Eleuthera, BS http://OurOdyssey.BlogSpot.com

Answering my own question here, in case anyone else has the same problem and was following along. I ended up making my own BSB format chart by importing an image of my paper Explorer chart. I wrote up the process on the blog, here: http://ourodyssey.blogspot.com/2015/05/improving-chart-plotter.html -Sean m/y Vector lying Chub Cay On 04/28/2015 08:08 AM, Sean Welsh via Trawlers-and-Trawlering wrote: > ... > If anyone has a source for S57, S63, or BSB charts of Bimini, Cat, and > the surrounding waters, please pass it along. I suppose an > alternative would be for someone to tell me the proper datum > correction to apply to the NOAA charts to have things be more or less > where they are supposed to be. ...

Not exactly PC solution, but if you have an iPad, GARMIN Blue Chart mobile is a great option. From what I've learned, GARMIN has the best coverage for Bahamas. Alex 420DB Inspiration Sent from my iPad > On May 10, 2015, at 11:35 PM, Sean Welsh via Trawlers-and-Trawlering <trawlers@lists.trawlering.com> wrote: > > Answering my own question here, in case anyone else has the same problem and was following along. > > I ended up making my own BSB format chart by importing an image of my paper Explorer chart. I wrote up the process on the blog, here: > http://ourodyssey.blogspot.com/2015/05/improving-chart-plotter.html > > -Sean > m/y Vector > lying Chub Cay > > >> On 04/28/2015 08:08 AM, Sean Welsh via Trawlers-and-Trawlering wrote: >> ... >> If anyone has a source for S57, S63, or BSB charts of Bimini, Cat, and the surrounding waters, please pass it along. I suppose an alternative would be for someone to tell me the proper datum correction to apply to the NOAA charts to have things be more or less where they are supposed to be. ... > > > _______________________________________________ > http://lists.trawlering.com/mailman/listinfo/trawlers_lists.trawlering.com > > To unsubscribe or modify your subscription options (get password, change email address, etc) go to: http://lists.trawlering.com/mailman/listinfo/trawlers_lists.trawlering.com > Trawlers & Trawlering and T&T are trademarks of Water World > Productions. Unauthorized use is prohibited.

Jeppesen C-map bought the explorer charts rights for Bahamas and Garmin bought some from Jeppesen but not all of them hence not complete coverages. Not sure about Navionics mobile app that now plays other chart plotters or if SEAiq can use the C-map explorer charts. Joe Pica M/V Carolyn Ann GH N-37 http://carolynann-n37.blogspot.com/ MTOA#3813, AGLCA #5485 Snip "...Not exactly PC solution, but if you have an iPad, GARMIN Blue Chart mobile is a great option. From what I've learned, GARMIN has the best coverage for Bahamas...."

"...Jeppesen C-map bought the explorer charts rights for Bahamas and Garmin bought some from Jeppesen but not all of them hence not complete coverages. Not sure about Navionics mobile app that now plays other chart plotters or if SEAiq can use the C-map explorer charts...." I haven't used C-Map charts for the past 5 years (ever since upgraded my boat), so I don't have first hand experience using them in Bahamas. However, my current boat is equipped with dual Raymarine E120s MFD (networked), which use Navionics charts. My iPad is my "3rd MFD", which has Navionics Mobile and GARMIN mobile charts on it. 99% of the time I use GARMIN app for the reason that it has integration with Active Captain. While on my recent trip from FL to South Abacos, it was interesting to seethe difference between Garmin and Navionics coverage. NAvionics uses more conservative approach with lesser "route options" (suggested magenta lines). In contrast, Garmin provided a lot more options and suggested routes. So, even though my onboard MFDs are always my primary Nav. tool, on the trip to Abacos my iPad was playing the leading role. But, I always referenced to Navionics charts for verification. A friend of mine, who was traveling with me on the trip on his boat, he had just recently installed new Hybrid version of Raymarine MFD. The interesting part was that his new Navionics chart was slightly different from my freshly upgraded Navionics charts. His charts were sort of in between Garmin's and my Navionics charts. I was not clear why our upgraded Navionics charts were different, as just before the trip I've downloaded latest charts via upgrade chip Navionics sells now. Alex 420DB Inspiration > Sent from my iPad > On May 11, 2015, at 1:21 PM, joseph.pica@gmail.com wrote: > > Jeppesen C-map bought the explorer charts rights for Bahamas and Garmin bought some from Jeppesen but not all of them hence not complete coverages. Not sure about Navionics mobile app that now plays other chart plotters or if SEAiq can use the C-map explorer charts. > > Joe Pica > M/V Carolyn Ann GH N-37 > http://carolynann-n37.blogspot.com/ > MTOA#3813, AGLCA #5485 > > Snip "...Not exactly PC solution, but if you have an iPad, GARMIN Blue Chart mobile is a great option. From what I've learned, GARMIN has the best coverage for Bahamas...."