Why Does My Chart Plotter Take Me Where I Don't Want To Go?

[Gypsy]

I have been navigating the Great Loop for the past eleven weeks. Currently, I am working my way north up the Intercoastal Waterway. Each day, I enter my next destination into the chart plotter and select Auto Guidance. Almost without fail, Auto Guidance takes me out into the ocean, or other large bodies of water, when I just want to follow the ICW. Sometimes increasing the distance dramatically. When I enter the same destination on my phone using Navionics or Argo, I get routed up the ICW exactly the way I want to go. I have my settings on the chart plotter set for 3 foot draft, 5 foot air draft, and the nearest setting, 250 feet, for distance to shore. Is there another setting that I am missing. Need help.

 

[scross]

Mr. Garmin is an extremely conservative guy. He just doesn’t like any place that doesn’t meet his inscrutable standards.
Can’t speak to the ICW but in the PNW there are a number of passes he just will not allow you to go through. Gabriolla Pass for example. With reasonable caution it is a simple pass to transit. Even when you are smack in the middle of it Mr. Garmin recommends turning around and going 30-50 miles out of the way to avoid that Pass. There are many other local examples of Mr. Garmin’s annoying behavior besides his treatment of Gabriella Pass.
I have yet to determine what triggers Mr. Garmin to loathe certain routes. If you figure it out please let us know.
On the flip side, he will route you right near the rocks when there’s a sharp turn in your route around an island. This even with the clearance distance settings set at 250 feet from shore. And near Anacortes, he will guide you right up the beach, over a rock breakwater and through a parking lot to get you into Skyline Marina.
All that said, we like Mr. Garmin but take his advice with a heavy dose of salt.

 

[it4llc]

You can set some routing preferences I think, such as minimum depth and distance from shore. But even with that I still sometimes have similar issues.

 

[KKRCRACE]

We brought our C24 up the ICW from The Gulf coast of Florida to Maryland and had the exact same problem with the Garmin. Luckily my wife runs Navionics on her IPad so we followed that a lot. If I remember correctly the Garmin would only let me do an hour or two on the ICW and sometimes Less or it would take me out in the ocean sometimes going way out of the way.
KKRCRACE

 

[freedomvango]

Yup. Same issues.

I have to go in and edit the route to keep me in the ICW. No matter the setting, it still happens.