Peter Kafer's Page

Lola, I'm guessing that your datamarine transducer will not work with the Garmin 440s. I don't understand what you mean by, "I want the s I think as shows other masses on the bottom..."? " Do you mean that the 440s shows bottom detail? If so, I'm not sure how helpful the display on the 440 is. In looking at the manual for 540s, the display for the sonar feature doesn't seem all that helpful. Bathymetric detail is an additional feature available when you buy the "Blue Chart g2 Vision Card". This apparently gives you a visual image of underwater contours. Frankly, I'm not sure about the value of this. I suppose it could be important in some locations. For me, I just want to monitor the depth, especially when anchoring. I don't know which charts are preloaded on the 440s. For me, the selling point of the 540s was the fact that it comes preloaded with the Bahamas Charts. I am not currently taking advantage of the "s" part of the 540--I already have a depth sounder, but will likely add the Garmin sounder the next time I have the boat hauled. I don't know what your cruising plans are. If you plan to stick to the US coast and the ICW, the 440 will probably be an asset. If you want to head for the Bahamas, you will find that something with "good" Bahamas charts will be an asset. Of course, you can buy a Bahamas chip for the 400, but for the price, you'd be better off buying something with the Bahamas built in. Certainly, you can get by with paper charts and a handheld. We did that this past winter. I know what it is like trying to prioritize purchases for a "new" boat. A chartplotter was not on my priority list. I hope that I have not talked you out of the 440s. If it meets your cruising needs, by all means go with it. The Sonar feature is good, even if you can't use it right now. If your current depth sounder goes belly up, you will be able to add the Garmin Transducer and be back in business.

I notice that you are from Little River. We spent New Year's Eve and New Year's Day 2007 at Cricket Cove. We are also relative newbies. We've only been sailing for about 5 years. We've done quite a bit of sailing on other peoples' boats. The ICW trip in 2006/7 was our first trip on our own boat. We did go outside a couple of times on that trip, but we stuck mostly with the ICW. This past winter, 2007/8 was our first trip away from the US on our boat.