The Magellan SporTrak Pro Marine is a handheld GPS receiver you can rely on for any trip on the water. It not only has the accuracy to get you there and back, but even if you drop the receiver overboard, it's not a problem, because it floats.

But a good marine GPS receiver should have more than an ability to float and the Magellan SporTrak Pro Marine does. It starts with a built-in 15 MB map, of North America or Europe, depending on where you buy it. This basemap shows both general land features, such as major roads, cities, and parks, as well as waterways, buoys, beacons, and other marine navigation aids. The receiver has an additional 17 MB of space for your own selection of charts. And when viewing the charts, you have the option of 12 coordinate systems and 76 map datum.

Tide information is also built into the SporTrak Pro Marine with the major tide stations covered. Moon phases, sunrise/sunset times, and best fishing times are also included for any place and date. Details on currents and additional tidal information is available with optional BlueNav chart software from Magellan.

With your chart selected the Magellan SporTrak Pro Marine is ready to guide you to your destination. The 12-channel receiver is Wide Area Augmentation System (WAAS) enabled for accurate position readings to within three meters. Or if you have a Differential GPS (DGPS) beacon receiver, you can use it with this unit since it's DGPS ready.

Learning to use the SporTrak Pro Marine isn't a complex operation. You simply select the navigation screen you want from a menu. And if you ever get stuck, there's a built-in help guide with step-by-step instructions. You also have options for how nearly all of the information is displayed. There are pan and zoom controls for showing only the chart section and amount of detail you want. And when reading your heading, it can be shown as either a compass image or only as text. Similarly, you can see you position on the chart or get just the coordinates, get your current speed reading or have it displayed as a speedometer image.

Other options the Magellan SporTrak Pro Marine includes are displaying text in nine languages, visual and audible alarms, and track to route conversion. Alarms can alert you if you get off course, drag your anchor, arrive at a certain point, or lose contact with the GPS satellites. As you move, a track log records your turns with up to 2,000 track points per trip. The track-to-route feature lets you change the track log of your path, whether it was preplanned or not, into a route. The conversion changes all the track points into a more direct and manageable route which you can save and use to backtrack or retrace later. The receiver has memory to store up to 20 routes.