looking for Mr. Good GPS

[Mike Whalen]

I took a gear junkie friend sailing Sunday. He brought his handheld GPS unit. Who Knew? For the first time ever I knew how far I'd sailed and at what speed. All the books and charts on sail plans don't do the same as looking at the speed increase or decrease as I play with the sails. Soooo . . . Any ideas on good GPS? I'd like to keep it simple, rechargeable and reliable. Cheap wouldn't hurt. I think his was a Garmin. I visited their website and it looks like they go for 150 and up. Suggestions?Mike

 

[David]

Map 76

The Garmin Map76, while not cheap, is the best hand held gps I have used. It has the capacity to download topographical and nautical charts. The gps is user friendly and in my opinion a must if you do not currently own a loran or another type of gps. Have fun!

 

[Josh]

GPS

That said, if you want to, check auction sites...many on there for cheap. I have thought about getting the Garmin ETrax...as well as the Garmin 168 GPS/Sounder combo, but that's not a hand held, and NOT cheap. I think the eTrax was going for 120 at Best Buy up here...check Walmart or any small electronics store.Josh

 

[Alan Wiser, '89 240 O'day]

Santa brought me the MAP 330M.....

from Magellan it is hand held unit and the data base has all the marine navaids and bouys and lighthouses! PC compatablity for downloading along with telling the best hunting/fishing times and sun/moon rise/set times for your location. This is new this year. Cannot wait to try it on the boat...works great in the car so far. Alan

 

[Norris Palmer]

GPS reccomendation

After renting a Nordic Tug in the San Juans after coming off of a Hobie 20 all my life, and never have read a map or used a compass, had we not had this little tv screen in color leaving electronic bread crumbs behind us, we would have been totally lost. I have used a mapping program a lot that works in a car and a lap top called delorme street atlas, and now saw it on a boat. I just bought a garmin 2010 for practice for Lake Grapevine, and eventually moving to the Pacific Northwest, but the reason I did it was that knowing lap tops and desk tops at work, you can never have a large enough screen....never. So go for the big one, the 2010. The other great thing is the mapping you can load into the screen that shows picnic tables at the marinas, or favorite fishing spots, etc. check it out at garmin.com i think or search for garmin.