Boat Life Outfitters

  June 2016.  Approaching Shallotte Inlet, North Carolina. "These markers look different from our chart. And the notes say we should hug the green, but was that the old green and now the new green is OK? We can't get too close to the red side, the notes say there's only 3 feet there. Is the current pushing us? Should we speed up to fight the current or slow down so we hit the sandbank slowly?" Bad times. February 2020.  Approaching Shallotte Inlet, North Carolina. "How's it going?" "Fine, I can easily see the shallows on AquaMaps. We're keeping our speed up to fight the current and I'm not worried about the sandbanks." Good times.  It has become pretty common to see tablets used in place of chart plotters on cruising boats, but did you know that a tablet is also the perfect companion to your chart plotter? Once you get the hang of how the software and apps work together, you can use the tablet for your planning before you set out on a t

  After years of cruising while working online, we've come up with solutions that work for us. Lucy's job requires web conferencing for 3-4 hours per day, which means we need a fast connection with at least 1 GB per day just for her job. So here's how we do it. First, let's define Wi-Fi. Everyone knows what Wi-Fi is, right? Well, we've noticed a lot of confusion about it lately. This article is about getting online, and Wi-Fi is a part of that. But maybe not in the way you think it is.  When someone talks about using Wi-Fi to connect to the internet, what they're usually saying is that they are joining an existing Wi-Fi network. Maybe it's provided by a marina, a coffee shop or a hotel. With that in mind, let's introduce Rule #1. Rule #1: Forget About Wi-Fi If you live aboard at one marina that has decent Wi-Fi, you might get away with using it for emails and maybe even the occasional Netflix movie. But in our experience, you cannot ever count on it for