If you have never heard of panbo.com, let me just quickly say that it is, without a doubt, the premiere, on-line marine electronics blog/web site in the world. Founder and editor, Ben Ellison, is a force to be reckoned with in the world of marine products and services. His web site/blog is carefully watched by almost all the “heavy hitters” in the marine industry.

So, it was with tremendous excitement and satisfaction when we learned earlier this week that Panbo had honored the SSECN with a very laudatory review of our web site in general, and our implementation of the ARGUS sounding data in particular.

Equally encouraging was Ben’s comparison of the Salty Southeast Cruisers’ Net with some of our competitors. After reading his article, we think you will agree that the SSECN comes off very well indeed.

You can read the entire Panbo review at:

http://www.panbo.com/archives/2012/06/crowdsourced_soundings_on_the_icw_cruisersnet_more.html

However, for those who have limited time, please allow us to present some snippets from Capt. Ellison’s article:

“As a guy who may actually cruise the Intracoastal Waterway this fall (as opposed to last year, when I only talked about it!), I’m delighted that there’s so much competition to collect and share relevant information about it. A particularly notable development is the way CruisersNet.net has teamed with Survice Engineering and EarthNC to overlay the former’s “Argus” volunteer-collected and tide-corrected depth data onto the latter’s slick online charting engine, along with lots of other valuable CruiserNet info.”

” . . . at least on my Internet connection changing layers, panning, and zooming are all quite snappy. What you’ll see is some current ICW depth detail that could be darn useful for visualizing the issues ahead, especially as it’s color coded.”

“Also seen on the screen above is some anchorage info that might be helpful to someone who didn’t want to overnight at the Coinjock marinas just north of this spot. These are not shown on ActiveCaptain, which may well be because CruiserNet is edited by Claiborne Young, who used to write print guides to the ICW and is now enthusiastically trying to provide the same thorough coverage online and with reader assistance. As wonderful as pure crowd sourcing can be, I’ve always thought that there was still room for pros . . . “

Many THANKS to Ben Ellison for these wonderful words. It’s not hard to understand why we find this development to be tremendously exciting