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Looks like a washout for us today.

In a way it's good. I'll get my projects done, but gray and wet is no fun. Deb is taking advantage of the rainy day, by sleeping in, while I type apologies to some of the bloggers I follow. The sad Aurora killing has stirred some emotions, and many people are taking sides on the issue of gun control. I took sides last night, and maybe got a tad emotional. Don't drink and blog folks. By the way when I talk about drinking, it's quite a small amount. I can't stay awake much past three or four brewskis.

So, we are going to do some cruising in September, going places we never traveled before, and I'm getting nervous excited about it. We're gathering charts and info, and I'm trying to get the old barge as ready as it can be. Hint: we're talking locks and tides.
I've been looking at electronics, and I guess I've been away from marine electrons for so long, that I don't recognize much anymore. I want a stand alone AIS, in fact I want stand alone everything. Nothing worse then everything combined into one touch screen and then having it crap out. This happens at work all the time. So, with that in mind, I took a look around the web, and everything of reasonable price tends to be integrated with some other piece of electronics.  I really do not want a network on the barge. We have a simple boat. We do not even have a chartplotter. Any plotting is done by me with a pencil. We do have a small Garmin gpsmap76, that is pretty handy, but the screen is so small and in grey-scale, that it's impossible to read with sunglasses on. Adding charts to this thing is expensive, and the fact that it's so old, the charts might not be available anyway. Might be time for an upgrade, and we've had good luck with Garmin, so I might dole out some cash real soon.

Maybe something simple, like this.