Jose - This is insane

Jose, US model - To The Coast! Want to try passing through that path?

Actually, the NJ coast kinda looks doable on Thursday but you would have to go
through Jose to get there unless you hugged the coast. Wind on the left, waves on the right. 

Thursday coastal forecast, not calm but you're being chased by Jose

So Jose is not satisfied in blocking all southern traffic, it's now going to continue doing that for the next few days and just for good measure, coast over to New Jersey to pay a visit there too! If you want to go south now, it's going to be through tropical storm weather. We are staying put until everything clears out, hopefully, that will be before Oct 4th, our new no-fly date.

Meanwhile, Maria is coming, a few outliers have it hitting land but at least
it's moving fast

The guidance for Maria is that it will rapidly move up the coast, not make landfall, and then go out to sea without lingering like Jose. At least that's the fantasy of the moment. We'll see what reality has to say about that. It is really hard to concentrate on doing anything with Jose and Maria hanging over us. I'm sure there are a lot of cruisers in the same boat as us but it's still frustrating!

Meanwhile, I'm working with AquaMap on enhancements to their app for better use in the US. I'm in almost daily contact with their development staff in Italy to add features of value to the cruisers of the ICW. They use NOAA ENC charts which is a big plus along with Active Captain markers so it's a good start. They also have unlimited routes that can be imported via the iPad interface to Google Drive. For good measure, their charts throw in the surrounding roads maps as well as topo charts as part of their bundle. One feature I've always taken for granted that I now find is far from standard is the display of an ETA for each waypoint in a route. I thought that was standard since my ancient Garmin 492 chartplotter does just that. It's invaluable in seeing when you'll arrive at a bridge in time for an opening. As you know, the ICW wanders a bit so a direct waypoint to the bridge will not work.  One must put in a route with all the turns and then highlight the one waypoint at a bridge where you need it to open. Having an ETA for that bridge waypoint helps in adjusting your time to arrive just when it's ready to open and not having the do donuts in a narrow channel while waiting. The Garmin 492 has this capability but Garmin told me that none of their present chartplotters do. I got the same reply when I queried several iPad app programmers. What an oversight! AquaMap will install this capability in their next release plus a few other changes I requested. I'll keep the blog updated with their progress. It's something to do while waiting for a window.