No Foreign Land

Every once in a while, you stumble upon some website or application that makes cruising life easier.  In the past I've written about a few.  On my current Bahamas trip, I was introduced to another that replaces an older standby that (in my humble opinion) isn't as good as it once was, so I thought I would share.

I don't remember when I had first learned of the old standby Active Captain, but when I did, it was a game changer.  It was quickly apparent that crowd-sourced data could be much more timely and up to date than relying on the limited guide books, paper charts, and other traditional sources of sailing information.

Unfortunately, as often happens when a large company finds out about a popular and good idea, they purchase it and try to figure out how to make it an advantage for themselves and not their competition.  And, in this case, I think the new owner effectively reduced the size of the "crowd" and the quality and timeliness of the data.  I don't blame the creator of Active Captain, he did a lot of work and deserved a reward.  So, while I occasionally still looked at Active Captain (when I could get the site to work), it was no longer a go-to place for good boating information.

In steps NoForeignLand.com

I was initially asked if I was on NoForeignLand by another cruising couple in Bimini.  I said I was not, and frankly, I thought to myself that I didn't really want another social platform to deal with.  I almost didn't bother looking into it.  But I was told it included the ability to provide position reports on a map and I thought "hmmm...well, maybe that would be good for our parents and friends to follow along on where we are".  So, I decided to give it a look.

Boy am I glad I did. It is a website with apps available for Android and Apple. Yes, it has a social function and can track where you are (if you want it to). But more useful to me, it has a wealth of crowd-sourced data on marinas, anchorages, places to visit, sources for supplies and provisions, boat yards, navigation hazards, and more.  Since we started using it, we have found a few nice anchorages and places to visit.  We also used it to find provisioning stops and parts.  I'm still learning all of its features, but so far I am quite impressed.

Screen capture of the NoForeignLand
site with our boat highlighted

The app and website were created and are maintained by a couple of active cruisers and seem to have many participants all over the world.  So, if you are looking for a replacement for what Active Captain used to be, I would highly recommend giving it a look.  Like me, I think you will be glad you did.