Does anyone know of a good program to download topo maps and charts so I can laminate them for my trip?

Thanks,

Mat

NOAA has charts in printable formats at:
http://www.nauticalcharts.noaa.gov/staff/BookletChart.html

I bought the Garmin Topo Canada DVD. I transferred The topos for Ontario onto a micro SD card so it can be used in my GPS. But you can also print off maps as you want them by changing the amount of detail or the scale. This works great for me.

Matt,

For viewing topo maps, I recommend downloading Garmin's free desktop map viewer, MapSource. MapSource and other free map-viewing applications are available here:

http://www8.garmin.com/support/mappingsw.jsp

Once you have the map viewer, you will still need to actually acquire maps to load into it. You can buy Garmin's maps, but that is an expensive way to go (100 bucks for the 1:100000 US topo). If you want free maps, I recommend Ibycus Topo USA. It is the most popular free country-scale topo, and is available for download here:

http://www.gpsfiledepot.com/maps/view/19/

The Ibycus map is definitely compatible with MapSource, although I can't vouch for its compatibility with Garmin's newer BaseCamp software. Once you've loaded the Ibycus map data into MapSource, you can either print out maps or download them onto a Garmin GPS unit.

Good luck!

Alex

if you can or better if you need to there's Garmin's new approach to NOAA's charts into electronic GPS. Nice !

Regarding the most excellent video on approaching Rabbit Key, Garmin/NOAA displays a snortsnortsnort tide channel route..

yeah I hear yawl...great finding it useing the dhow method....yo ! finding with the gPS method !

If there are seamounts and tides as at the San juans or endless sadnbars at lower tides as at Flrida bay then electronic rules for a not local pilote

try Google Earth. Sea level island profile views, shoreline perspectives from sea level...