The Salty Southeast Cruisers’ Net is proud to announce the completion of the promised improvement in our recently premiered (see /?p=117421) “Statute Mile/Lat-Lon Chart View Search Widget.” Now, navigators can easily and quickly enter a Latitude/Longitude position, and, with the press of one button, an interactive Chart View page will open centered on the specified location.

What remains UNCHANGED is the method by which our users can open a Chart View page centered on a particular Statute Mile of any Southeastern USA Waterway. To do so, simply choose your Southeastern USA Waterway of interest, enter a Statute Mile, press one button, and, “presto-chango” an interactive Chart View page will open centered on the specified Statute Mile.

WHAT HAS CHANGED, IS THE ABILITY TO EASILY ENTER A LAT/LON POSITION IN DEGREES/MINUTES/DECIMAL MINUTES FORMAT!

Here’s how it works. Locate the red, vertically stacked menus on the upper, right sidebar of any (except Chart View) SSECN page. Pick any coastline. For example purposes, let’s choose “Eastern Florida.” Click “Eastern Florida” and a drop down menu will appear. In this drop down list you will see a menu item entitled, “Stat. Mile/Lat-Lon Chart View Search” indicated by the red, right pointing arrow, in the graphic to the right.

Now, click on “Stat. Mile/Lat-Lon Chart View Search” and a dialog box will appear like the one pictured below:

In the bottom portion of the dialog box, under the “SEARCH BY LATITUDE/LONGITUDE” title, click the button to the left of the label, “Degrees/Minutes/Decimal Minutes Format,” as shown by the right pointing, red arrow above. Now, under “Latitude” in the “Deg:” field, enter “36” (without the quote marks), and in the “Min/Dec. Min:” field enter “19.311” (again, without the quote marks).

Under “Longitude” in the “Deg:” field, enter “76” (without the quote marks), and in the “Min/Dec. Min:” field enter “10.601” (again, without the quote marks). Your dialog box should look like the one shown below:

Now, click the “View ChartView At the Specified Lat/Lon” button, at the bottom of the dialog box. After a few seconds, a Chart View window will open, centered on Lambs Marina, north of Elizabeth City, NC. Neat, huh!

Please remember, these Chart View pages are NOT STATIC. You can place your pointer anywhere on any Chart View page, hold down the left mouse button, and drag/pan the chart as far to the east, west, north or south as you desire. You can drag all the way north to Maine or south to Key West, Florida.

Another thing you can do is activate the incredibly helpful Chart View ARGUS layer by simply clicking the “Argus(MLLW)” check box, above and to the left of the chart image, as pointed out by the red arrow in the graphic to the right.

Once the ARGUS layer is activated, you can peruse all the voluminous water depth data gathered by the ARGUS project. Talk about an on-the-water ADVANTAGE!!!!

And, of course, all our clickable Marina, Anchorage, Bridge, Info, Navigation Alert and AICW Problem Stretch icons will also be fully visible and functional on the Chart View pages you open using our new locator widget!

Alternately, you can click the button to the left of “Degrees/Decimal Degrees Format” and enter your Lat/Lon position in this format. This works almost like the example above, and is pretty self explanatory!

Please give our improved widget a try, and let us know what you think! Send all comments to EditorialDirector@CrusiersNet.net!

Good luck and good cruising to all!

The Salty Southeast Cruisers’ Net Bunch