Manatilla Shoals Bahama from Ft.Peirce

Two years ago after beating s/e winds for 2 days from Jax, on the third morning we headed out of Ft.Peirce on a near straight line to Great Sale Cay.
South East winds still in our face, 4 & 5 on the bow with some ugly trash waves slightly on port.

Were in our Bertram and don't have time for a weather window. Arr Arr..

Rite before the bank, Walkers on the scope still a ways off to our east, wind & seas down nicely, we made a beautiful approach over Manatilla Shoals and zig'd around (waz nothing) a long bar that was slightly described on our latest Navonics chart chip. Hook and dinner at Great Sail late but joyful.

In the time since, I have described our path onto the bank to many startled faces.
You Can't Do That... Are You Insane??? Have been most of the returning comments.

We are planning the same line again in June. I was wondering;
Was this really a good line or were we lucky from some un known?
Anybody been here / done that before?

Oh, I e-mailed the kids with the popular cruising guide. 3 months later no response.

Thx,
Ralph

I have set up a PC at the helm Running the RayMarine PC software. It allows me to bring up radar, bottom scope and charts using the chart chip providers usb/chip reader.
Raymarine/Raytheon originally use the C-Map chart chips them moved to Navonics CF & SD chart chips. Between these chips and my note-book full up notices and updates not on the chips, I feel pretty good using this setup. Paper charts are in the next drawer below the PC.
I am very please with the Navonics chips so far.

I am not familiar with Explorer charts. Can you please point me in a good direction to check them out? Ya think it would run under my RayTech stuff?

Thx

There is no information on entering/leaving the bank in this area. Nothing in the guide or on the web I can find. Looking at the charts is seems simple enough but I can see it get rough under some weather/sea conditions.

I would love to hear about antibody's experiences in the Manatilla & Shoals area.

,rc

This was some of the stuff I found on the web. I did not find anything new on the chips. I also thought the orange Max chips did not work for RayMarine software. Has anybody used the newer orange c-map chips in Ray stuff?

New release of C-Map Bahamas charts do not have Explorer Chart data in many areas
Published November 30, 2011 | By monty
Jeppesen has furnished us with a new release its electronic Bahamas Chart package for our review. This version, C-Map NT Max, September 2011 (M-NA-M022-14) was reported to have fixed the problem of two data sources in the same chart area showing different detail. As we were advised, no Explorer Chart data has been used in the Abaco, Grand Bahama, Little Bahama Bank area, and in the area east of the Crooked Island Passage, and the Turks and Caicos. These areas contain only chart data from another source. The remaining areas of the Bahamas are covered mostly by Explorer Chart data. After reviewing the C-Map product we agree with Jeppesen that this release corrects the problem of commingled data from two sources on a given chart area. It now segregates the data into two areas–Explorer and other source data. However, we find many inaccuracies in many areas not showing Explorer chart data.

In another lead, in 2012 an update was included but in the same article, comments of poor coverage in allot of areas were still on the chips.

http://chatter.explorercharts.com/?page_id=8936