MaryLou asked about apps. She liked the tide app I used in the last post. This is the Tides Near Me app, I believe it was free. Very easy and convenient to use.
My main navigation app is the Navionics Boating app which gives a screen image like this, plus lots more information including weather, tides, anchorage and marinas (with links to the marina websites). I do not carry paper charts on the Charleston to Palatka sail, I rely on this app on both my iPhone and iPad mini 6 for navigation down the ICW.
Click on the Navionics screen will bring up the option for the weather screen, above. There is a fee to get full access on the app, including weather. I don't recall what it is, it is not much and it is worth it.
At certain points along the waterway there will be tide markers on the charts. (Go to the second picture in this post. SPARTINA is the red arrow heading west. Just to the left is a small blue tide marker showing an opposing tide). Click on tide marker and above is the screen that you will get with easily understood tide/current information.
I use several weather apps for wind, I am not happy with most of them. Above is the Windy app which gives a good visual representation of wind/gust speed and direction. With the changing climate these day I am not convinced that weather modeling is accurate. Often I will check a couple weather apps, including SailFlow, and try to extrapolate what kind of wind to expect.
As for the outboard, a Suzuki 2.5 four-stroke, I found it was inconsistent when trying to start first thing in the morning. Once I did get it started it would easily start for the rest of the day, i.e. when heading into an anchorage or a marina. The outboard is with a friend/mechanic right now and he tells me he has it running very well. The outboard is a good outboard, my old Suzuki (same model) would start easily on the first pull. I expect my mechanic friend made some adjustments and did some cleaning.
I hope to have SPARTINA back in the water this week.
MayLou, I hope to see you and Fred on the Spring sail on Chesapeake Bay.
Thanks for the app info. We've used Navionics on an Android tablet as our primary navigation for the last 7 years. We actually have it on two tablets (one at the helm and one for the navigator ;) ) and it may be time to update them both. I agree with you on weather - the models really aren't as reliable as they were a few years back. I find I spend more time than I used to reading the forecast discussions for the local NWS office where they talk about the models on which they are basing their current forecast and their confidence in the models at that particular time.
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