dockholiday wrote:loco ......got an uneducated question here. looks like the bluecharts are more for ocean travel and the great lakes. is that about 200 for just the card? not in the market right now but trying to gain a little knowledge for a purchase in the future and sure don't want to make a high dollar mistake then. Oh this is what i was looking at.
g.premiumstore.com/cat/18813/Garmin-Marine-Software.html
oh well the link didn't take..........sorry
thanks doc
On the Garmin site there's an interactive map where you can zoom to your area and turn on and off layers to see what Garmin has available. Yeah, it seems the g2 Vision charts only cover the coasts and Great Lakes, but also U.S. Inland Rivers (http://g.premiumstore.com/details/18826 ... ivers.html). Not sure if those would be any good to you.
I ended up going with just the regular g2 charts for cost reasons. For $150 it covers the Trent-Severn Waterway (my 2012 trip) and the Great Lakes, including Georgian Bay (my 2013 trip). The Vision charts were split up between my two trips, so I'd have to pay $250 to cover this year's trip and another $250 for next year's trip. (BTW, yes, it's $200 or $250 just for the card. Chartplotter itself was about $400).
For my home stomping grounds, the g2 charts don't cover anything. Our largest lakes are just the approximate shape with absolutely no data. I would imagine it'd be the same for less-populated areas in the US too. However on the bright side (and I'm sure this would work for you too), my plan is to just get a $70 Garmin Topographic card and use that. Unfortunately it still has no chart data, but it does have and detailed outlines of lakes, rivers and even creeks. Plus obviously all the land data including contours, spot elevations, roads, some trails...
Last thing... check out the Garmin GPS Map 431S. For about $50 more than the 421S it includes US Inland Lakes or something like that. Those are NOT the Vision charts though. They were useless to me in Canada so I went with the 421S.
Hope this helps. I'm not an expert, I just happened to look into this all recently.
LC.
