Montgomery Listers -

Those of you who like to delve into the Web's possibilities, especially where nautical things are involved, may want to play around with the chartmaking potential offered by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

It's a tad complicated - you must first download a suitable "reader" called "SeeMyDENC" from this site:

http://www.openecdis.org/freeware/index.html

Then you browse and select a chart area from the NOAA site:

http://chartmaker.ncd.noaa.gov/mcd/enc/download.htm

There are appropriate warnings about the currentness of the charts, but they look pretty good to me - and each chart selection comes with the relevant Notice To Mariners. Anyway, they're fun to play around with - and they're free.

Werner Pels

longtime lurker