There’s always a better way

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There’s always a better way

Barney the Yorkshire Terror

by Christine Kling

And I guarantee you that if you are a female solo skipper traveling around with the Yorkshire Terror, somebody is always going to stop to tell you about it.

The other evening I was doing my laundry at the Green Turtle Club and this woman and her little boy came over to see the dog. Barney gleefully jumped up on the boy, but it frightened him. I apologized and the lady said, “You really should train him not to do that,” and then she launched into her story about how she trained her dog with a spray bottle full of water.

I wanted to say, “You don’t think I’m trying, Lady?” This little dog is the most hard-headed, stubborn beast on the planet. I’ve watched videos, bought special leashes, worked with food treats – you name it – and still, when the Terror gets fixated on something, whether it is running away down the beach or barking at the flag flapping in the wind, there is no getting his attention.

But dog training is only one of the areas where folks have been telling me that there is something wrong with how I’ve been doing things. Several days ago, I decided I didn’t like the place where I was anchored because the wind was soon going to clock around ninety degrees, and I would be too close to a bunch of nasty-looking old dead coral. I decided to go visit with another female solo sailor and ask her opinion. We sat there in her cockpit discussing the various spots I could move to when a fellow came by in his dinghy. He stopped by and then launched on a thirty minute rant on “How to anchor 101.”

When I finally did move my boat, I decided to set two anchors because I was going to be in the middle of several moored boats. When I dropped the first anchor just ahead of and close to a moored boat, a fellow on another boat yelled out, “Hey, there’s a boat behind you!” I turned and smiled and nodded – meanwhile nearly drawing blood as I bit my tongue.

And recently, I’ve been getting lots of emails telling me that there is something wrong with this new Spot Connect of mine. Folks are telling me that it has got me high and dry smack in the middle of Green Turtle Cay. If you check out the picture at left, you will see what I mean. You see, the Spot devices use Google Maps on their website and in spite of all the years they’ve had to perfect their

Apple’s Maps app

cartography, they haven’t figured out yet that there is a lagoon in the center of the island.

I know there was a big stink when Apple dropped Google Maps for its Location Services and instead put out their own proprietary mapping system that still had some problem areas. However, when it comes to Green Turtle Cay, at least Apple’s Maps app (try saying that 5 X fast) shows the big lagoon (though one might well wonder how the boat managed to get inside without wings).

And finally, to get an idea how the different cartography interprets some of the same data, here are two screen shots that show my same location using the two major iPad navigation programs. The last time I wrote about iPad Navigation apps, I was told in the comments that my first choice for a Nav app was wrong.