Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

Although the packaging offers coverage of the U.S., Canada, Caribbean, and South America on this expensive CD, you can only unlock a very limited "region" with your original purchase. Says Garmin tech support, "When you purchase BlueChart, you're entitled to one free region, and then additional regions can be purchased for $116.65." The word "free" here reflects Garmin's generally abysmal use of language found on their Web site, a labyrinth of obfuscation tangled in their arcane and ultra-paranoid "unlocking" technology and hidden prices. Unlike their Topo and City Navigator CDs where you get a lot of maps for your money, BlueChart gave me a limited sliver of southwest Florida for my purchase price. When I went to load Cape Cod, I discovered I would need to pony up another $116 for this small region. To unlock everything on this CD would costs many, many thousands of dollars, and nowhere is this clear to the unwary consumer. What is especially grating in all this is that Garmin relies on U.S. government maps and GPS satellites that we taxpapers have already paid for. I find the marketing of Blue Chart really deceptive, especially given the important public safety implications of nautical mapping. I would add that boat-towing travelers and nautical siteseers will need shoreside mapping and road info, for which these charts are useless, so you'll need additional map products and memory cards to show roads, parks, dining, and local amenities. Buyer beware.