T&T: Tide and Currents

[Scott Bulger]

the question was asked:  Tide data is available in Canada etc. but no
current data.    Has this been your experience?

I was astounded to find currents were very, very hard to predict, in the
open ocean, in local inlets and in large, predictable bodies of water.  Some
bodies of water (the Puget Sound) seem to have fairly reliable current data,
like Pt. Wilson, where it's accurate to the second.  But it also seemed like
local conditions would influence Tide and Current so much, the printed
tables were questionable at best.  Traveling from Seattle to the Panama
Canal we had 1 knot on the stern almost the entire way.  When we turned the
corner at Punta Mala in Panama we had 3 knots on the nose, as local cruisers
told us we would have.  We consistently found that local knowledge was more
valuable than printed data.  Crossing from the San Blas to Key West we had
two knots on the stern until we turned the corner at the West end of Cuba,
then we had counter currents from the Gulf Stream on the nose.  I was stupid
and didn't head N to grab the Gulf Stream, still kicking myself for that
lapse in judgement.  In the ICW we often found the predicted currents to be
very inaccurate.  Eventually I made my own decisions about current, really
only factoring it in as it related to bar crossings and such.  At the end of
the day if your traveling long distances you really don't have a lot of
choice, and your going to have it with you and against you.  As a good
friend said "the current give eth and the current take eht away".  I
wouldn't base my software purchase on this factor alone.  There are so many
reasons to choose Coastal Explorer, such as, it doesn't crash.  Hmm, in
15,000 miles and almost 2,000 hours I think it crashed once, maybe twice.
Both times I was monkeying around with it.

Scott Bulger, Boatless in Seattle