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The rocks and shallow areas are clearly marked, dropping anchor is make easy in places one has never been to before.It's really cost effective as the paper charts to cover the area would have been easily double the cost, and finally the ease of use makes the old charts nearly obsolete. I was slightly aprehensive before the purchase about the screen size and level of detail on the maps, but after a little getting used to, I was really VERY impressed.Having been used to large paper charts (expensive) this is a great deal. I was sailing on the Canadian Westcoast (Vancouver - Gulf Islands, Sunshine coast) and bought a Garmin GPSMAP 76CSx plus the Bluechart for the area. I still would keep some trace on paper in theory, but by the end of the 2-3 weeks sailing, I was quite happy with just the hand held GPS as sole mapping and positioning. You can plan before a rough course, and have a good "large scale view" and easily zoom down to great detail, and be certain as to where you are, down to a few meters. If you have narrow & shallow passages with limited visibility, this is a really good system and proved to be accirate and spot on. So maybe a 2nd GPS as a back up would be wise.The only bit I am unhappy with Garmin, is that you cant transfer the software from one GPS to another, so if you loose the GPS, tough, you loose all the software as well. Unfair in my view.
I got the chart coverage I needed as part of my "free" download and the loading of the CD into my laptop and the download from my laptop to the Garmin all went smoothly. I delayed buying the MapSource Blue Chart CD-ROM for a couple of months after buying a Garmin CPSMAP 76CSx because I couldn't get comfortable with what worked with what and what would it look like, and how much would it cost to download the marine charts I felt I needed. Enough time passed that I finally had to make a decision whether or not the handheld GPSMAP was going to function as a backup to my boat's chartplotter or not as I had to pick up my boat from a shipyard 120 miles away and bring her home. The handheld Garmin worked perfectly and mirrored my chartplotter accurately for the two and half day trip up the Inter Coastal Waterway. I could have navigated the whole trip with the BlueChart if I had to, although it would have been inconvenient due to screen size.
There is one major flaw to this software.when you buy the CD you can only unlock one very small portion of the maps, if you want to unlock additional maps on your CD you need to purchase an unlock certificate for each region you wish to unlock. The BlueChart Maps provide plenty of detail and are fairly simple to read on your device. The programs are also fairly simple to load on your PC, unlock and upload onto your Garmin device. IMO if you buy the CD you should be able to access and use the ENTIRE CD. Just another way to rip off the consumer.
It's pretty rare to find blatant examples of unfair business practices in this day and age but I think this falls in that category. Wow, I wasn't expecting that I would get all of the Caribbean or Lake Titicaca (Peru) for the initial price but I certainly expected they would include the only two lakes covered in Minnesota for the same price.
Well, they did manage to cover Superior and even Lake of the Woods and Rainy Lake, but they missed a little something called the Mississippi River (at least the northern half) and the other 9,997 lakes. There aren't many choices for nautical chart software for the Garmin 76cx so I sprung for the Bluechart Americas package expecting it would cover at least a few of the 10,000 lakes up here in Minnesota.
I can choose to unlock the Rainy Lake area for the $100+ I spent for this package but if I want Lake Superior it's another $100+. What's unbelievable is the unlock process.
Holy cow. What a colossal rip off.
Incredible.
This is a good stock (GRMN) to short. I would not recommend Bluechart Americas to anyone.
Wait 45 minutes for tech support to get on phone, then they have to hand you off to someone else which means another 45 minute wait. Six weeks now and I still don't have this GPS running.
The best help is through others who have struggled with this and posted remarks and solutions on the internet. Their instructions and web site are not intuitive and are very unclear.
A friend who is a software designer can't figure this convoluted mess out. This was supposed to help me navigate in my kayak, but it is giving me ulcers.
It just has to go down.
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