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I am a new boater and a bit nervous about under water hazards. Is there any website that has topographical maps of the water depth in the triangle area lakes... or a store that sells hard copy maps/charts? Thanks.
I'd hesitate to rely on charts, both because the water depth varies depending on the amount of rain and because the major hazard in local lakes is trees/stumps. Buy a depth sounder.
P.S. You might also alleviate some of your nervousness if you take a class with the Raleigh Power Squadron. They have a great program. They can also direct you to charts. http://www.rsps.org/
J_Lurk, thanks for the suggestion. I probably didn't word this the right way. I am not new to boating... I just recently bought a boat and am new to the area so don't know any of the bodies of water around here. I've boated a lot in the past, but its been a few years. I do have a fish/depth finder, but it will only work when my trolling motor is down. I will eventually put another depth finder on the boat to cover me when running the main motor at some point, but I would also like to get a lay of the bottom of the lakes for hazards, fishing, etc. before going out. I understand about stumps and rocks, but if I know the depth is over 10' then I don't need to worry much about that, regardless of the rainfall and such (severe droughts being the exception of course).
I was able to find what I was looking for from Navionics. For $9.99 I was able to get their eastern lakes app for my iPhone and it has charts of all the lakes around here. You can zoom in to get more detail and there are a lot of other features beyond what I was looking for. The only downside is that the GPS function seems to be off a bit. We were out on Lake Jordan and it was showing us over on land some place... but its easy enough to figure out visually where you are, which is what I wanted. I can now look at them quickly to identify any shallow areas and just avoid them while we are cruising or tubing. I will also use it to spot potential places I want to fish before hitting the lake.
Thanks again. I will look into the class you suggested. I want to get my teenage kids through some training so they can drive the boat too.
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