Navionics Has Removed All Charts For Southeast Asia Creating A Dangerous Situation for Boaters

Navionics Has Removed All Charts For Southeast Asia Creating A Dangerous Situation for Boaters

[Music] So, I made the most insane and disturbing discovery last night. Navionics has removed all of the charts for Southeast Asia and the South China Sea. They are not available any longer to purchase, download, or update. Here’s the video I filmed right after discovering it last night. I just discovered the most insane thing. And I’m certain that I’m correct because I’m looking at it on the Garmin website. My subscription ended for Southeast Asia, Oceanana, all this stuff today. So, I went to renew it and it said price temporarily unavailable. I kept I reopened the app, kept trying. I was like, weird. Okay. And it wiped on my phone. It wiped all the charts that I had downloaded. All the downloaded maps for this whole region that I had were all just wiped off the phone. Kept trying it. I was like, weird. trying to plan. I mean, this is what I use for all my navigation around the world. Trying to plan a trip in, you know, the next leg in two days. I go online to see if I can log in and buy it on there. Maybe it’s just a weird thing with the phone. They have discontinued. Garmin has discontinued all of Southeast Asia. So, anyone that has an active plan that’s still going on, they have access to those. But you cannot buy and subscribe to any of the charts. And it says on their website they’re going to release the new charts in the third quarter of this year or something crazy. So I quickly grabbed my iPad, opened it up, and turned the Wi-Fi off to make sure it’s not connected to the internet. And then I opened Navionics. And I have them all downloaded here. I don’t know to what detail. So, we’ll see. I I can’t believe this. And there’s a on the website says just continuation of marine charts in the Southeast Asia region as of July 1st 2025. The following Garmin Navionx blah blah blah list all these names charts have been removed from sale. Indian Ocean South China Sumatra Java Borneo Central West Papu and East Selawesi. And then it goes on says, “Users with an active subscription of these products will continue to be able to perform chart updates until the natural expiration of their subscription. New charts that replace the dismissed products will be released quarter 3 of 2025. Note that existing subscriptions of demis dismissed products will not be updated with these new regions. Therefore, a separate purchase is required. Indian Ocean to Thailand, Indonesia and Malaysia, Navionics boating, Indian Ocean to Thailand, Navionics boating, Indonesia and Malaysia. So, they’ve wiped all the charts. Now, I’m in the middle of an archipelago with tons of coral and dangers. Now, there are other apps which I’ll obviously have to download now and see what they cost. That’s madness. I I am dumbfounded. It’s so crazy to me. And if for some reason y’all find that I’m confused, I would love that. But it’s on the Garmin site. I just read it to you. If you find something different or a loophole, plea, please let me know down in the comments. So, to try to put this into context, it’s like if you were driving in a foreign country on a road trip and suddenly Google Maps just vanishes. Just vanishes from your phone and there’s nowhere possible to buy a road map. You’re just kind of like stranded. Now, to add to that like visual, you’re also driving through a minefield because right now I’m in a very dangerous archipelago. There’s coral everywhere. It’s completely insane to me that they would do this to their customers and that they would put voters at risk and how it’s even legal for them to put voters at risk in this way. And the fact that they didn’t make the charts, continue to make them available until the new ones were ready. I I honestly don’t know how that’s legal. Probably in the fine print somewhere. Now, there’s going to be people on here that say in the comments, they’re like, “Well, you use paper charts. Just go back to paper charts.” I carry paper charts whenever possible. But the reality is there all companies have stopped producing paper charts. And the other reality is when was the last time a paper chart was updated for Indonesia with the new dangers. And where do you buy paper charts? Especially here suddenly all of my charts have vanished. I can’t just go ashore and buy, you know, a large scale chart for Indonesia. Now, as I said in the video, currently the charts are still here on my iPad. Hopefully, they hold out. I just have to make sure and never connect that thing back to the internet because they just vanished from my phone as soon as it recognized that my subscription had ended. And my subscription was set to autorenew. So, it’s not like I lapsed or something like that. They just blocked everyone out so that anyone who’s in my situation, you’re in the middle of a very dangerous cruising ground and then suddenly they remove your option for navigation. Now, I have been a loyal paying customer to Navionics. I think before they were owned by Garmin and then since they’ve been owned by Garmin for like eight years, I’ve preached that you can do more with less where you can just use Navionics and a um Garmin puck, GPS puck. But obviously I won’t be preaching that anymore. And I guess like I mean the immediate course of action is I just hope this holds up. Um, I looked at INAVX, which is another option. They want $900 just for the Indonesian charts and $250 for the Malaysia charts for an app for the for the app for the phone, which is crazy. And there’s, you know, people like, well, use OpenCPN. I’ve used OpenCPN for the last eight years as well, but it only runs on my laptop. You can’t see the laptop in the in the cockpit. So, I’m not going to navigate off of my laptop in the cockpit. It doesn’t run on my iPad. There’s cap. So, I was looking into that, but their price structure is like kind of hidden. I can’t quite figure out what it really costs. They want you to start the trial that’s going to charge you in two weeks without telling you what it costs. So, that’s sketchy. And somebody else on Instagram said that Cap had done the same thing to them, saying that the charts weren’t available yet for some other region. This is the dangers of these everything going digital. It is like it really puts us at a high risk. Super super spooky. Um and I don’t know the answer. Um I guess for the near future I guess I’ll start looking for a built-in chart plotter. I’ve never had one because they get outdated as soon as you install them. But at this point at least it would be hardware that was like no one could take away from me like that, right? So, I guess I’ll start looking for a built-in chart plotter to put on the boat. Um, really shocking. Really, I can’t believe it. And um I can’t believe where the world’s going with corporate greed and and putting putting people’s lives at risk. It’s a it’s a serious safety problem and it’s completely avoidable. They could have just left the charts available until the new ones are ready. They’re already they already exist. Huge failure from Garmin. And um I just wanted to let everyone know if you’re out there and you’re heading into Indonesia or you’re already here and your subscription is going to lapse, you’re about to run into a very, very sketchy situation just as I did. If you enjoy the content on this channel and would like to contribute, you can consider joining the Patreon crew. Thanks for watching. Fair winds until next time.

This is a special message to let everyone know that as of July 1st Navionics / Garmin have removed all of the charts for the Indian Ocean and Southeast Asia essentially stranding boaters who have long used their apps with no way to navigate these dangerous waters.

Here is the page I was reading from on the video: https://support.garmin.com/en-US/navionics/faq/BQlVBkJHSP0Fzg2feBbRvA/

Please spread the word about this and contact Garmin if you also think this is unacceptable.

If you enjoy the channel please “Like” the videos and Subscribe so you don’t miss any future episodes.

If you find the videos helpful or entertaining and would like to contribute you can become a Patron at: https://www.patreon.com/sailorjames

Other Ways to Support the Channel:
PayPal: https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/jamesthesailorman

Venmo: https://venmo.com/u/sailorjames

Cash App: https://cash.app/$triteia

Bitcoin: https://cash.app/$triteia

Fair Winds,
James

Website:
http://svtriteia.com

Instagram:
http://www.instagram.com/james.the.sailor.man

#navionics #garmin #dangerous #charts #corporategreed