CalTopo Nautical Charts-getting started

[gyork]

My go-to source for trip planning and making customized nautical charts is CalTopo https://caltopo.com/map.html  On the home screen, you will see a small button in the right upper corner that looks like this:

 

Click this button                       to get a drop-down menu, and select “marine charts.”   

 

To configure units:

 

 

Now find a paddling destination of interest on your screen. You can determine bearings and distances by selecting “measure” in the upper menu bar. Select “measure distance” from the drop-down menu.

Select (click) a fixed point of interest on your chart, then extend your line to an endpoint,      

 

then double click at your endpoint/destination. A box will appear with distance between points.

 

 

Use "take bearing" feature in the "measure" dropdown in a similar fashion.

Have fun playing around with this handy nav tool. In a separate post I will demo how to make your own customized charts.

gary

[terese pawletko]

Do you then print at home or send to staples?

terese

[gyork]

31 minutes ago, terese pawletko said:

Do you then print at home or send to staples?

terese

You could print @ home if you have a color copier, but I prefer to print and laminate at my local Fedex/kinkos. I'll mention this in an upcoming post on customized charts.

[Joseph Berkovitz]

While CalTopo is nice for online viewing and measurement, I find the resolution of printed CalTopo charts poor compared to cropping the original NOAA PDFs and printing at the full original resolution. If anyone’s interested, I covered that technique in the slides for my presentation earlier in the year here:

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/15MNYkiiALa8iZz8RZb2kCS_RNYaPXTY2KuwT9BRildQ/edit?usp=sharing

 

[gyork]

Of course Joe is correct Re: resolution. The beauty of printing your own 8.5 X 11" CalTopo chartlet to laminate, is that they are still cheap and very easy (fewer steps) to customize/print/laminate, especially if you are getting 2 chartlets/laminate. They stack nicely under your deck bungies.  I am generally satisfied with less detail of the chartlet printed in a smaller scale; I can zoom in and get more detail for areas I will likely be paddling, then build more charts. As an example, the smaller scale (~1:56K) chart of the Stonington area here gives me an overall layout of the area, with loss of some aids to navigation (central blue area):

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I can then customize 2 larger scale (~1:53K) charts from this area, and label them Stonington N and Stonington S, the latter shown here:

Note I have adjusted the interval between MN lines.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here are a few more examples of my customized charts:

Muscle Ridge S.pdf

Jewell chart2.pdf(Note the added lat/long references)

 

 

 

Edited May 10, 2020 by gyork

[Jim Snyder]

I've been printing some charts on waterproof paper. They don't last forever but neither do laminations. I use a laser printer and don't know if an inkjet would work as well but they are rated for that. I bought some loose sheets from the print desk at Staple's but they can be ordered on line as well. When they wear out I print a new one.