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

There has been a really entertaining discussion underway this week on the American Great Loop Cruisers’ Assocation Forum (AGLCA, http://www.greatloop.org/) about what makes for a really great cruising day. Anyone who has ever taken to the water can readily appreciate the messages below:

Finish this sentence.
You know its a good cruising day when…
.. a dock hand calls you “captain” for the first time.
.. the harbor hosts are awesome!
.. a marina’s wifi is so good you can watch Netflix.
.. you time your passage through a series of drawbridges and they are all open when you arrive.
.. your best cruising buddies are waiting for you dockside when you arrive at a marina.
.. you join a cruising flotilla that is more fun than what you planned to do by yourself.
.. friends on jet skis come out to meet you as you arrive.
.. the weather is better than the forecast.
.. a fellow boater tells a nervous dock hand to not worry because, “he knows how to handle his boat.”
.. the jerk that waked you terribly is pulled over by the water patrol.
.. you are heading to a free dock and its empty when you arrive.
.. the skipper of a passing boat radios you and tells you that your boat looks great!
.. there is just enough of a breeze to keep things cool and to keep the bugs away.
Darrel Grob

.. no one got hurt!
.. your best friend was by your all day side.
.. something you saw made you go, “Wow!”
.. everything worked, and nothing broke.
.. the Erie Canal was open.
.. the River System was at normal pool.
.. the Atlantic Basin was quiet.
.. the sun and the moon rose and set at their respective appointed times!
.. no one got hurt!
Peg and Jim Healy aboard Sanctuary

The yard bill is less than four figures.
Bru & Sandy Brubaker

The Salty Southeast Cruisers’ Net is very proud to announce a really neat and very useful, new feature, which will make it easier than ever to access our interactive “Chart View” pages at just the location you need. Now, by using our new “Statute Mile/Lat-Lon Chart View Search Widget” all you need do is choose a Southeastern USA Waterway, enter a Statute Mile, press one button, and, “presto-chango” an interactive Chart View page will open centered on the specified location. What could be better!

Here’s how it works. Locate the red, vertically stacked menus on the upper, right sidebar of any (except Chart View) SSECN page. Pick the coastline of your choice. 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 new 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:

First, select your Southeastern USA Waterway of interest from the drop down list in the “Select Waterway” field. For this example, let’s select “Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway.” Now, notice that UNDER the “Statute Mile” field, the dialog box/widget provides the minimum and maximum Statute Mile values for the particular Waterway you have selected. In the case of the Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway, it runs from Statute Mile 0 (near Norfolk, VA) to Statute Mile 1095 (in Miami, Florida).

Now, let’s say that you wanted to look at the AICW near Statute Mile 878, which happens to be hard by the community of Titusville, Florida. Enter “878” (without the quote marks) in the “Statute Mile” field. Now, click the TOPMOST “View ChartView At This Location” button.

The first thing the widget will do is round off your requested “Statute Mile” to the nearest five mile position. That’s because NOAA charts display Waterway statute mile markers in five mile increments. In the example we are following here, “Statute Mile 878” will be rounded to “Statute Mile 880.” If you had requested “Statute Mile 876” your request would be rounded to “Statute Mile 875.”

Of course, all this “rounding” takes place invisibly, and in the blink of an eye. What you will see, continuing with our example, is a Chart View page that will open to the position of Statute Mile 880. Pretty neat, huh!

Now, 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!

Finally, you will notice the bottom section of the dialog box which opens when you invoke our new “Statute Mile/Lat-Lon Chart View Search Widget,” entitled “Search by Latitude/Longitude.” The idea behind this function is to allow you to specify a Latitude and Longitude position, and a Chart View page will open centered on this specified position.

For information on how to use our new “Statute Mile/Lat-Lon Chart View Search Widget” to open a Chart View page, centered on a specified Lat/Lon postion, please visit:

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Please give it a try, and let us know what you think! Send all comments to CruisersNet@triad.twcbc.com!

Good luck and good cruising to all!

The Salty Southeast Cruisers’ Net Bunch