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Its always been my opinion that the safest navigators learn to dead reckon and then get electronics to make life easy. Its nice to hit a GPS button and be worry free. You can follow the dots on the plotter like the kids who dropped crumbs to find their way home in the forest. Problem is that if something goes wrong (like the birds who ate the crumbs...or a dead battery) you are lost.
Learn to run from buoy to buoy and learn to continuously update your position with beam sitings on land or triangulated positions with a compass and charts.Its sounds hard but its not and the Power Squadron offers free courses to show people how.
Last piece of advice is that the most important piece of information you must have to find your way home is to know where you are at all times. If you can keep track of where you are , you can find your way home.
When I learned 19 seasons ago , I had to learn to navigate with a compass , charts , watch , and knotmeter and tide and current tables. I then was able to have the "luxury" of a radio direction finder. Then it was a loran and now a GPS. In all honesty , I was never safer than when I had to keep track of my position and plot a course the hard way.
Anyway , I guess what I'm saying is learn the basics of navigation then use the electronics to make life simple. Don't risk everything on 4 AA size batteries.
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