New Jersey Kayaking

After Google sent me a bill for their map service, I decided to switch to OpenLayers maps, which are free. And I quickly came to like them better. At first, I thought the satellite imagery was neat, but it turns out that often things are hidden under trees. Also, the coordinates on the satellite imagery are less-than-accurate. Google's street maps are also less-than-accurate, and also less-than-informative, lacking accurate borders and labels ( although they do have lots of advertising! )

As I got the hang of OpenLayers, I started to redo a lot of things and simplify, getting rid of a lot of stuff I had done to make up for the shortcomings of Google Maps. OpenLayers maps look a lot like USGS quadrangles, and don't need a lot of help, just zoom in and there is a wealth of information. Google's maps are also strongly colored, which makes it difficult at times to do anything with them. OpenLayers uses nice muted colors that are easy to write over.

But satellite imagery is still interesting and informative, so I added links to both Google Earth and Bing servers. A great deal of functionality comes from an plugin I wrote to help-out the main maps plugin. I've also made a few changes and bug fixes to that, which I hope the developer will eventually incorporate. The irony of this, for Google anyway, is that the free products are actually much better than the paid ones.

This paddle is nearing the end of its life, so I decided to try an experiment. I added a "drip notch". This is a small sharp-edged notch that the water flow can't follow. Instead it departs the edge of the paddle and falls well outside the boat. I hardly got a drop of water on me.

To make the notch, simply drill a 1/4" hole by the edge of the plastic blade, 6-7 inches from the base. Then file it to the shape you see here, with a sharp corner at the edge. The back-cut assures the the stream can't jump over the notch to the other side.

I can't claim this idea, I've seen a few paddles with this feature.

All maps are now snapshots of one master map. You can now navigate the website by zooming, dragging, and clicking on the maps.

Then I went nuts, and added a ton of markers for things that look promising on Google Earth. Now it's a bigger mess than it ever was.

I also figured out how to draw the county borders on the maps.

The Google Maps API leaves much to be desired. In fact, the whole thing reeks of typical Google arrogance and stupidity. After messing around with it a while, finding out what doesn't work and what you can do, I eventually cobbled together a decent interface. Google needs to fire a lot of PhDs and hire some people with brains.

I decided to add a section on wildlife. So far I have done a bunch of birds.

More: Wildlife ...

I sprang for a WordPress plugin that lets me place live maps or satellite imagery in the website. There are three choices:

• OpenMaps - excellent free street maps
• GoogleMaps - not quite as good street maps from Google that may not be free
• GoogleEarth - satellite imagery from Google that may not be free

I say may not be free because Google's terms are complicated and depend on the amount of traffic you get. I'm guessing it will be free, but I can't be sure yet. So far Google has not cost me anything.

More: Live Maps ...