Sharing Your Summer Cruises

Summer cruises are often the memorable ones. Day trips are longer and more relaxed, weekends can stretch over several days and weekdays are made for uncrowded coastwise cruising. All these adventures are more fun when they are shared. You can't always include everyone you'd like to bring aboard, but thanks to social media and some new technologies, you can still share the fun.

Spot On
Spot Satellite GPS Messenger came on the market as a rescue activator. Operating on the Globalstar satellite constellation, this device also gained popularity because it allows you to send an "I'm OK" e-mail to people you designate in your account on the Spot website. That account allows you to determine who gets your messages when you push the button on the device to check in. It also allows you to preconfigure a second message to be sent in lieu of the standard "I'm OK."

After not too much thought, I chose the one message anyone who spends time on the water is familiar with: "All is OK, but I will be returning later than planned." Spot's canned message has reassured a lot of families that mariners far from cell and VHF service are safe. Spot also launched a significant number of rescues with its SOS alert.

Share the Adventure
In addition to the original version, there is now the Spot Connect, which adds the capability of sending a text message from a Bluetooth-linked smartphone as well as triggering the preconfigured messages. Both products allow you to impose your GPS position on a Google Earth map on the Spot server. Anyone with access to your account can view the map with your check-in positions and your track superimposed on it. The preconfigured e-mail that is sent when you transmit a signal includes a live link that pulls up the map with the position of the transmitter on it.

The devices also have a Track function, which creates an every-10-minutes position posting that also can be saved to a Google Earth map. Once you're at your home computer, you can sign on to your Spot account and move the GPS positions onto a Google Earth map, assemble a photo gallery and put together a page called Spot Adventure. It's a simple set of steps to post a record of your travels and photos taken along the way. It can be shared with others or become part of a trip or cruising archive.

Phone Home
Sharing your boating adventures via Spot requires some assembling at the computer after the fact. A more direct and immediate way to share a day on the water is with the Navionics Mobile application. Navionics Mobile charts are sold at the App Store. Chart sets start at $10 for the Marine & Lakes: USA. When you purchase one of these regional sets you get access to a huge amount of information on the Navionics server. You also have the choice to download particular areas so you can access those charts when you are out of cell or Wi-Fi range.

Central to sharing your travels is the Track function that appears at the bottom of the Navionics screen. Select this and the GPS function and the mobile device ? iPhone, iPad, Nokia or Android ? keeps a record of your travels. Along the way, it becomes embedded in the track file.

The cautionary point is battery life. While recording a track off Guatemala recently, I ran the iPhone in this mode for five hours until the battery reserve said 35 percent. That's not bad, and had I plugged it into on-board power it would have charged itself and continued tracking. Battery life is something to consider if you intend to create a daylong record of your outings.

Once your day's travel is complete, simply hit Track again, which toggles that function off. Touch Search and a list of saved tracks appears. Touch the most recent track and a series of menus leads you to a screen that allows you to send the track file as an e-mail or post it to Facebook or Twitter, where it will appear as a link that opens a Google Earth map of your journey with the photos imbedded along the way.

If you want to polish up the presentation, once at a computer you can rename the file and select and rename the photos to include, all in Google Earth. Then e-mail the file to friends. Maybe you'll find some really utilitarian use for this Track function. Christine Gelinas, mobile applications assistant for Navionics, may have best summed up the ultimate value of the track- and trip-sharing possibilities: "It's fun." That's right, just like boating in the summertime is supposed to be.