5.91 nm, 3.3 kt moving avg

I test drove (walked??) the new Garmin GPSmap 62s, a respectable 5.91 nautical miles at 3.3 knots.  No, it did not take me an hour and 46 minutes to go that far - that "moving time" includes some of the gps configuring that I'll mention below.  The track was set to record a point every three minutes during my morning walk (which explains why I appear to be hopping fences and cutting through backyards here and here).  I can tell from the straight lines down the streets that this gps is much more accurate than my old gps.

I had used the three minute marks on my old Etrex, filling up the storage with about a week's worth of sailing.  This new gps has quite a bit more storage, I may adjust the tracking to two minutes or maybe even every minute.  I will have to experiment with that.

I spent nearly an hour the other day going through all of the available setting on the gps.  There are five different pages of information - maps, compasses, trip computer, etc - and each of those pages can be customized with different formats and multiple choices of information viewable in the data fields.  There were so many choices that I found it simplest to break out the old Etrex to see what I used for information there and create a similar setup on the new device.

I also completed my waypoints from the Spring walkabout from Onancock Creek at the bottom to Fishing Creek, the channel out of the north end of the Honga River, at the top.  I marked all the islands and points both inside and outside of Tangier Sound, all of which I had marked on my old device but with the Homeport software these waypoints are more precise.

Below you can see a little channel I hope to explore at the south end of South Marsh Island with the new waypoints imported into google earth.  It seems like the cut through the marshes between Pry Cove and Sheepshead Harbor would be easy enough to find, but my experience is that those opening in the marsh "disappear" when viewed from water level.  This should get me close enough to find my way.

While creating the waypoints I began to think about the trip, where I would like to go and what I would hope to do.  I know that I will launch in Crisfield.  I would like to head north on Tangier Sound, enter the Honga River and visit the fishing village at Rippons Harbor.  What is there?  I don't really know, but it will be fun finding out.  From there I would like to go south outside of Tangier Sound, sailing the backside (western side) of the islands, including the smaller island I have never visited such as Adam, Holland and Spring Islands.  And of course visiting the villages on Tangier and Smith Islands would be nice.

Above is just a thought.  I'll adjust when I see what the wind is like.  The trip is still a couple of months away.  Plenty of time to think and dream about it.

steve