An interesting solution for the Jonesport uncharted breakwater problem came all the way from the S/V True Love in La Paz, Mexico.  Skipper Bill Stockton has written a program called ChartAid which can turn Google Earth photo maps into BSB format so you can navigate on them in programs like CE, Nobeltec, and Chart View.  I did get an “Invalid BSB” warning when I installed the chart Bill sent into CE, but it works fine.  As you can see above, the registration with the official chart looks spot on, and my vessel, track, and route, plus data sets like GuideBook, overlay properly.  Even the “properties” make sense, with the possible exception of the Source date.  And apparently it’s easy to make such photo maps with ChartAid…

Yup, the first time you cruise into Sawyer Cove in often foggy Jonesport, Maine, you may be surprised to discover that there is a substantial steel and concrete breakwater extending from the fixed light almost all the way to the Eastern shore.  That’s because the structure still hasn’t made it onto the official charts, or any chart I’ve seen, even though it was built over 20 years ago, and even though the NOAA ENC inset above was updated on 9/17/2010.  I mentioned this when I first wrote about Sawyer Cove in August, but that entry was largely about how poorly any of the guides — digital or paper, professionally written or crowd sourced — covered the facilities available.  Since then I’ve learned more about the breakwater situation, and it’s depressing…

Back in April I enthused about the improved Guide Book section seen in the Coastal Explorer 2010 beta, soon to be official in CE 2011, but I didn’t mention discovering all the UK and Euro data that’s had been added using CE’s own built-in Guidebook tool.  I’ve played with the tool myself, and it’s easy to create a POI with free form text, a link, and even photos.  And it’s easy to sync/cache all the Guidebook data stored on CE.net, like it is with ActiveCaptain, Atlantic Cruising Club, and other data sets (when your PC is online).  But for some reason hardly anyone in the U.S., aside from the Pacific Northwest, has contributed Guidebook data.  So how is it that England and nearby coasts are studded with all sorts of valuable port and marina Guidebook POIs — and some more fanciful items, like that nice shout out to Panbo above?  And what might it say about this whole crowd sourcing thing?