How to get to a Waypoint without hitting the rocks in between

9:08 PM Tue 28 Sep 2010 GMT

'Tonga Fanua Tapu Pass - your boat is not where the electronic chart says it is...' .

Let's begin with an example. Recently on our NauticEd flotilla with the Moorings to the Kingdom of Tonga we wanted to pass through the Fanua Tapu Pass which is a gap in the reef to get to the eastern islands of the Vava'u archipelago. Normally the gap is marked by a series of buoys, however the latest storm ate them. The pass is well documented by two waypoints. Traversing using a GPS map, however, was out of the question because Tonga, like many other places in the world, is not accurately placed on the world coordinates. In other words, your ...

Click here for full story.

by Grant Headifen