Garmin Charts - crappy?

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I am not impressed with the Gramin G2 Vison Charts for Vancouver Island Area. The lack of detail, the small number of contour lines and few depth marks make these charts not that useful. Fishing in Bamfield on the weekend, in an area between two gridlines just off the shore, depth show a consistent 90 feet, all of a sudden on the fishfinder 55,45,37 feet. Reel up the riggers fast! This hump was not on the Garmin Chart.

I never ran into this with my previous Lowrance with Navionics Gold Chart.
Anyone else dissatisfied? The Garmin charts are not cheap.

Are there free updates one can get to charts? how?

The HD radar was impressive in the fog however.
 
I second that. I liked the charts on my old Garmin chartplotter, Blueways charts. I called Garmin about the Vision charts but there doesn't seem to be anything I can do. One free update is available during the first year after purchase but my issue is the chart format and how it's displayed. And your right, the detail leaves something to be desired.
 
Send the data to Garmin They are very responsive--But..the data comes from hydrologic office Canada, thru a private party. I know that Garmin is re-charting many US locations. I don't know how good the Navionics is for that area, but they have some outstanding charts, which are very cheap to use on the tablets (I pad in my case). I'll check my recent up grade for that part of Canada. I can only compare with Garmin Blue charts currently (both on I pad).
 
That is correct, the Blueways charts were super. Newer Garmin products are all Vision charts. Tough to explain the difference but in my layman ways I preferred the old charts to the newer ones. My whole reason for getting a new unit is that they contain all US charts. With the old Blueway charts you bought charts for the area you needed. 12 years later when I went to get charts for some other areas I tried to get them but Garmin no longer supports, nor sells charts for that format. Or so I understood from talking to tech support. I hope I wasn't mistaken.
 
Molly Brown":28odj8b6 said:
12 years later when I went to get charts for some other areas I tried to get them but Garmin no longer supports, nor sells charts for that format. Or so I understood from talking to tech support. I hope I wasn't mistaken.
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In my experience you are not mistaken. My boat came with a Garmin 2006c chartplotter, which takes the Bluechart data cards. Garmin no longer sells them. (However I was able to get quite a few on eBay, and one on Craigslist.)
 
Where do the various chart makers actually get their charts from? Do any of them actually do marine surveys or do they just republish government charts?
 
mgarr682":1jnbbyvo said:
Where do the various chart makers actually get their charts from? Do any of them actually do marine surveys or do they just republish government charts?
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The basic charts usually come from individual country hydrographic offices, and then modified by the various companies. Navionics currently has a plan where an individual boater's information can be sent directly to the company via the internet--lat/long/depth.

Some companies buy private charts, such as the "Lewis Explorer" series of the Bahamas. Garmin has direct teams who go out and actually survey waters. I don't know specifically about other companies, but suspect that they do also. Also any individual mariner can send in data to either company, the national service or private chart companies. For example we found a pinnacle in the Caribbean near San Andres Island, which was not on any NOAA or DMA charts, back in 1983. We waited around this area, making contour lines by dead reckoning as best we could--until we got a Sat Nav fix. (These were about every 6 hours before GPS). We reported it to NOAA and eventually it appeared on charts. We also "found" (the hard way) a pinnacle rock off the coast of Turkey--not on US DMA charts, but it was on Admiralty (British) charts. We started carrying both Defense Mapping Agency and Admiralty charts.

Also satellite mapping has come into play in the more recent years. Many charts off Mexico, (and other parts of the world) you can see where the sailing ships tacked up the coast, by the only soundings which have been on the charts for many years.

Then there is Google….
 
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