Explore Put-In-Bay, Sandusky Bay, Catawba Island, Kellys Island and the surrounding waters of Lake Erie with our free interactive nautical map. Zoom in and local marine charts showing depths, channels, and other features will load automatically. Click on the ‘View Full Screen’ link for additional options including weather (buoys, airports, marine forecasts) in the ‘Nearby’ menu and a route making tool for drawing and saving your own trip. Use the Map Search bar to find marine businesses, hotels, or other locations.

Our new EarthNC Chartviewer features the full set of Gulf Lease Block charts for free online viewing. Here are direct links to each of the charts:

- Chart 1113A – Lease Block for Havana to Tampa Bay
- Chart 1114A – Lease Block for Tampa to Cape San Blas
- Chart 1115A – Lease Block for Cape St George to the Mississippi Passes
- Chart 1116A – Lease Block for the Mississippi River to Galveston
- Chart 1117A – Lease Block Galveston to the Rio Grande

Use our Route Maker tool under ‘Routing’ to generate waypoints you can export to KML, GPX, or a print out.

For offline use with GPS integration, EarthNC offers a full set of lease block charts for Google Earth on our EartNC Raster Southest DVD. Most offline users will also want our EarthNC Plus vector charts and GooPs Pro GPS to Google Earth software. The EarthNC Plus vector charts include charted pipelines and offshore platforms which are also great resources for finding fish.

Using the Chart Notice Layer

1. Download the EarthNC Chart Notice Index Map into Google Earth
2. Find the Chart Desired (by default only harbor and approach chart scales are displayed, enable other scales by checking its visibility box in the Google Earth ‘Places’ menu)
3. Click on the () icon to see the total number of notices for this chart and to see the ‘View’ links
4. Click on the ‘Click to View Chart Notices’ link in the chart pop-up window. This will load notices for the selected chart into Google Earth. If saved to ‘My Places’ this overlay will automatically refresh daily. If you need to use the notices without an internet connection, use the ‘download’ link instead – but this link will not refresh.

Legend and Usage Notes
Notices have four principle types:
Change (non-position) – Changes in an object’s label, note, etc… but not to its position

Move – The charted object has moved from a previous location to the one at the location of the chart notice

Addition – A new object that was not previously in the chart

Deletion – The given object has been removed from the chart

Near and dear to EarthNC’s heart is the included model for the USS Oriskany Aircraft Carrier that was sunk off the coast of Northwest Florida in May of 2006. We watched the sinking 1st hand from our 28′ Regal cruiser 27 miles offshore from our home port of Fort Walton Beach Florida. Our coverage of the sinking was the first major story of our new boating blog DestinSharks.com and eventually led to the founding of EarthNC two years ago to market Nautical Products for Google Earth.

To commemorate the new 3D Oriskany model, we’ve published our own special Sinking of the USS Oriskany KML file for Google Earth. Our KML includes the embedded video of the sinking, the ‘official’ location of the Oriskany as provided by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, and our boat’s GPS track while filming.

If you plan to visit the USS Oriskany by boat, we recommend you not use the 3D model location as it appears to be off by nearly a mile from the published location. The model is quite realistic, but has a couple of minor errors. The hangar elevators where removed prior to sinking and the large radar dome on the aft island superstructure floated free during the sinking.

Our Northwest Bahamas Chart Package Includes:

• Over 100 Charts for the Abacos, Berry, Bimini, Grand Bahama, and New Providence Islands
• A full Bahamas 3D Planning Chart
• Hundreds of Recommended Routes, Waypoints, and Marinas
• 12 Month Access to Premium Ocean Weather Forecasts for Google Earth
• EarthNC Online links to Bahamas High-Resolution Aerial Photosgraphs from Marinas.com
• EarthNC’s Online Nautical Library of Google Earth content
• Fully compatible with EarthNC Plus and Raster US NOAA Charts 

 
Add GPS Support with our Chart/GPS Bundle

• GooPs Pro GPS to Google Earth Software
• US Globalsat Waterproof USB GPS with 24 Channel WAAS Support

We will be releasing additional regions for the Central Bahamas and Turks & Caicos later this year.

EarthNC Bahamas is PC/Mac Compatible and works with Google Earth versions 4.2 and higher.

Order EarthNC Bahamas Charts

EarthNC Northwest Bahamas Chart DVD	$79.95 + $6.00s/h
EarthNC Northwest Bahamas Chart/GPS Bundle Includes Chart DVD, USB GPS, GooPs Pro GPS to Google Earth Software	$149.95 + $10.00s/h

You can view the Marinas.com Aerial Photo Layer alone in Google Earth HERE, or better yet, view it within our free EarthNC Online service, or with full nautical charts as part of our EarthNC Lite 30 day Trial.

UPDATED 2/03/2010 - The Earth is 2/3rds water and judging by the huge volume of boating videos online, it’s clear that enjoying the water is a worldwide pursuit. To help put boating videos in their world context, EarthNC has put together a growing Google Earth map of boating videos drawn from YouTube.  Videos are found automatically by searching YouTube for boating, sailing, and fishing keywords that also include a place description.  

Getting Started

1. Before downloading our Boating Videos for Google Earth KML file, we suggest that you first ensure that you have the latest version of Google Earth. The file won’t work properly unless you have at least version 4.2.  Get the latest Google Earth HERE.
2. Once you’ve verified that you have the latest Google Earth, open our Boating Videos for Google Earth KML file. This file will update with new boating videos automatically as you use Google Earth
3. Locations with boating videos are marked with video thumbnails. Click on a thumbnail to see videos for that location. I
4. For even more context to the videos, especially in North America, you can also open our EarthNC Online Google Earth file which adds charts, tides, weather, and more to your Google Earth world.

Help us Add More Videos

If you’re adding your own videos to YouTube, make sure you use their new location menu during upload so that we can automatically get the locations in the future and use good keywords to indicate their about boating or fishing.

Click HERE to View in Google Earth

Finding Buoys and Observations:

Active weather locations are marked with yellow buoy icons (). These icons are rotated to point into the prevailing wind. A circular background color, if present, indicates wave states greater than 4 feet. Similarly, the presence of red wind flags indicates elevated wind speeds above 18 knots. Hover the mouse over any buoy to see its full name and official tracking number.

Specific wind and wave ranges are indicated by the Buoy Legend show below and also available in the Google Earth Place Menu.

Detailed Observations, Historical Plots, and Buoy Notes:

Click on a buoy to see detailed information. Each buoy description includes:

• The Individual Buoy Homepage at the NBDC
• The latest text observation for the buoy (rendered in real-time from the NDBC Buoy RSS feed)
• Any NBDC provided station notes
• Links to historical observation plots if available – such as wind, wave, and temperature trends

Disclaimer

This map is not an official source of weather data and should be used for planning only.

Via the miracle of cell-based internet aircards, EarthNC will be receiving Capt Bill’s position and recent webcam images while he journeys for display on this page and in our interactive maps. During the journey, we’ll be getting posts for Capt Bill on his progress and experiences. We’ll also take some time to document how we’ve accomplished the tracking and webcam tasks in case you’d like to do the same.

Photo Highlights and Comments:

• Day 1 – Chicago Transit
• Day 2 – Illinois River
• Day 3 – Illinois River
• Day 4 – Illinois River
• Day 5 – The Mississippi
• Day 6 – The Mississippi, Ohio, & Cumberland
• Day 7 – Lake Barkley and Kentucky Lake
• Day 8 – Tenn-Tom
• Day 9 – Tenn-Tom
• Day 10 – Tenn-Tom
• Day 11 – End of the Tenn-Tom
• Day 12 – Mobile to Destin
• Day 12 – Mobile to Destin
• Day 12 – Mobile to Destin
• Day 13 – Destin Day Off
• Day 14 – Destin to Carabelle
• Day 15 – Carabelle to Clearwater
• Day 16 – Journey’s End

Lock Photos:

• Brandon Road Lock (Illinois River)
• Dresden Island Lock (Illinois River)
• Marseilles Lock (Illinois River)
• Starved Rock Lock & Dam (Illinois River)

Interactive Map
See Capt Bill’s most recent position along with EarthNC Online chart data with the Google Map below. Check the ‘Show Navaids’ box to also see buoys, lights, and markers along his route.

You can also follow along in 3D with Google Earth. Click HERE to open Capt Bill’s journey in Google Earth. Positions will update roughly once per minute while Capt Bill is underway and has network connectivity.

Most Recent Webcam Image
We’ll be posting his most recent webcam image here when we have an internet link.

Included Reef Information with Most Sites:

• Site Name
• Deployment Date
• Construction Material
• Depth
• Dimensions (length, width, height, approximate volume)

Each reef site also has a unique ’submit information’ link so that users can contribute more information to share with other boaters.

Try it Out

Click Here to open the EarthNC Florida Permitted Artificial Reefs Map in Google Earth. To combine reef information with Online Nautical charts including buoys, markers, and lights, try our free EarthNC Online service.

Need Google Earth? Download it free HERE!