ActiveCaptain (www.activecaptain.com) is a visual marine database designed to allow cruisers to share knowledge and experience with other cruisers. The wiki-style interface features marinas, anchorages and local knowledge markers displayed on maps and satellite images, which allow users to easily modify and add to the data. Access to the database is free for anyone, and in just 16 months, the website has become a destination for thousands of boaters worldwide.

ActiveCaptain was born of our own needs as we began taking our boat on longer and longer cruises. When we started venturing further away from home into places that were unfamiliar, we kept turning to those who had gone before us. We learned so much from others at boat shows, rendezvous and on the Internet. But it forever seemed we were finding out information just after we really needed it.

Jeff had a strong background in computer imaging – we built a medical imaging company in the 1990s. As we started spending more time boating, Jeff turned his talents to displaying nautical charts. He worked professionally on projects with Raymarine and Maptech and developed software that displayed nautical charts on handheld PDA's and phones.

So we were heading down the ICW with our onboard Raymarine gear running and our Palm PDA beside it at the helm. We had purchased all of the "required" cruising guides and referred to them daily. We quickly became frustrated with wrong phone numbers, grocery stores that had closed years before and no real information about the quality of the facilities. And as for good anchorages, well, they were rarely mentioned.

The question we asked ourselves seemed obvious: why can't there be a way to share the knowledge we all exchange dockside, but to have that information always available? We looked at our Palm displaying the NOAA charts and thought it would be great to see what's coming up – marinas, anchorages, restricted bridge openings and more – right on our phone. Folks who had gone before could leave information for those coming behind. We realized the key was getting input from the community, and that's where the seeds of ActiveCaptain took root.

7,000 CAPTAINS

The ActiveCaptain website went live in January of 2007 and the response has been amazing. As we write this, there are more than 7,000 registered users, 15,000 marinas and anchorages, and nearly 17,000 local knowledge markers. Our Captains have provided 6,000 reviews for marinas and anchorages. They enter fuel and slip prices, and offer advice for approaching an inlet or marine facility. The community just keeps growing. We're averaging about 1,000 updates per day to the ActiveCaptain database.

Our Captains can access all of this from their computers for free. But as we've already described in this series, we found the ability to take our smartphone with us – on the boat, on the dinghy and ashore – to be an amazing benefit. And so we launched ActiveCaptain Mobile earlier this year.

ActiveCaptain Mobile is a native smartphone application that combines access to thousands of free charts; an electronic guidebook, including the data on the ActiveCaptain website; and a powerful, portable chartplotter.

Included with ActiveCaptain Mobile is access to every NOAA chart. Regions of charts are downloaded and ready to use without any conversion -- and we update them to the latest NOAA editions every six months. The software is available for only $49.95, including all the NOAA regions ready to be downloaded to your smartphone.

While we needed to charge a fee for the mobile software to defer the costs of the website and the thousands of hours we have invested, we will keep the website free. It is important to us that every boater have easy access to shared information.