Can your Garmin 550 be of any use on the River?

The Mississippi for sure, the Colorado, maybe.. If you are lost yes any of them... Make sure you keep it dry though..

I think I might be able to save the street locations to find how to drive back to the area ...
I will be taking it with me. I am an erosion control contractor in northern california and the housing market has put the crunch on so I had the bright idea of finding places along the river that have eroded and getting close to someones house...
rock gabions might keep the wolf away ... When the going gets tough the tough get going ... Ha ha Bill

Actually it might just be an excuse to buy a jetcraft fastwater .... :>)

IF YOU ARE INTERESTED IN SHIPWRECKS THERE ARE A FEW GOOD POI'S ON THIS SIGHT...MOST WILL PROBABLY BE IN OCEANS HOWEVER, BUT SOME ARE IN RIVERS. DIVERS FIND THIS MOST HELPFUL.

Finding marinas, gasdocks, or eateries/bars etc... But marking points to return to it would be of a great use...

You have a C550 which does not have an off road setting, I'm not sure if that will affect marking points.. Anyone???

There'll be a certain amount of 'snapping to roads' going on. Which may turn out to be an advantage...

Turning off "City Navigator" and relying on the basemap might be an option. Loading Topo maps might be an option as well.

Last year I posted this
http://www.poi-factory.com/node/2238
I suspect based on my river experience, which was before I owned a GPS, that you may want to do some homework on this before using it on the river as well as during and after. The reason I say that is you can probably save some favorites by looking at MapSource and saving them on your C550, but there are others that you won't realize until you are on the river. If it were me, I would probably save Locks and Dams, River Mile Markers, and marinas. I know that there are river mile markers already posted, but it may be quite handy to have them on the GPS as well. The Lock and Dams can be handy because if you know a barge is locking through in 15 minutes, it may be nice to know that you are only 5 minutes away. I think having the telephone numbers for the marinas would be handy. That way you can call ahead to verify hours, etc., if needed.

Depending on the river, you could use Garmin Bluecharts with your C550. I use them on a Colorado and my Nokia N95. Having access to depths, POIs, marinas, etc, is pretty cool. If you let us know which river, (give some coordinates...) I can look it up on the Bluechart on my laptop and let you know if there is coverage. The Potomac River near DC for example, is on the Bluechart system.

FYI. Garmin also makes a "US Inland Lakes" dvd which has coverage of inland waterways. It looks pretty comprehensive and would work on your C550 as well.

Here is the list of maps that Garmin offers for the water:

http://www8.garmin.com/cartography/ontheWater/

Jeff

lat: 39°54'23.35"N

long: 122° 5'50.88"W

I went on the sacramento river today and my garmin was alot of use not for depth or reading the river but I could tell where I was in relation to the streets that were close of course any houses that are on the river will be easy to find. by using the save option then taking the long and Lat back to google earth and pin pointing where you were should then be able to find the address. Pretty cool tool.

Bill

I just finished a 19 day cruise from Fort Lauderdale to Seattle Washington with my Garmin Nuvi 780 and it would indicate where I was on the water and how many miles it was to the next port but could not calculate arrival times. It would tell me that there were no roads available so it was unable to calculate any kind of route which I guess would give you your arrival time. It also gave me ship speed in MPH that I could convert using the 780's conversion feature.