Surprise!

Unless you are reading this via a newsfeed (RSS, Atom or whatever), you'll have noticed that I've changed the design. This is partly because I like a change from time to time, but mainly because I'm starting to take advantage of an added feature of Blogger, namely the permanent pages, and the old template didn't let me put the extra pages as a set of tabs across the top.

I've put up one about the Braidbar Owners' Group, and I'll add others as they occur to me. The one about the BOG was originally on my static website, and I was prompted to transfer it here by the latest post on Shell Bell. Thanks for the mention, Norwyn and Sheila, and for the picture of Sanity.

Since there's not a lot to say about our boating today (lazy start, stopped at Whittington for a loaf of bread, not much choice in the Whittington Co-op, came on to Huddlesford, plenty of room here), I thought I'd talk about the Garmin, as Martin was asking about it in a comment yesterday.

I got mine for my birthday two and a half years ago. After much research, I settled on a Garmin eTrex Legend HCx. At the time, Garmin didn't support Macs as well as they do now, so I bought the mapping for it on a micro SD memory card (the x in the model name means that the GPS has a slot for one of these).

It's a high accuracy beast with a colour screen, but no altimeter or proper compass. It cost about the mid range, and has been generally satisfactory. We use it for walking, especially in areas new to us, for geocaching, and for keeping track of where we are when boating. It means that we have an accurate measure of how long we're moving each day (useful if you are using Sheila's diesel calculator), and although there's not much risk of taking a wrong turn on the canal, it still has its uses.

This is because I've added key features like locks, winding holes and boatyards as additional waypoints as we've gone along, so that when we come back that way, you can check just how far it is to the next such item.

Downsides:

• Garmin maps are quite expensive (over £50 for the southern UK, for example)
• The sealing band round the unit can start to unstick in hot weather
• The colour screen, whilst perfectly readable, is quite small if you are used to an in car type satnav.

As I say, I'm perfectly happy with it, but nowadays would be tempted by the Dakota series of touch screen units, which have a larger screen as a result of not needing space for buttons.