satellite water temperature services

[Carrie-Dee]

I’ve been surfing around trying to find a reasonable satellite water temperature service for the upcoming off-shore season. These services can get pretty pricey. I’ve found some free sites, but the quality of the mapping, scale and usefulness of the map seem questionable.

The Rutgers University Marine site (free) seems like it could be pretty good, but it never seems to be active when I visit it. Other sites I visited include marineharbors, oceantemp, bluewaterfishfinder, sstcharts and getaforcast.

What is the best value? Every hour counts on an off-shore trip and I hate to be scaling off a crummy sketch to save a couple hundred bucks.

[JAGSARE1]

My experience has been that they haven't been very useful for me. That isn't to say they don't work but my experience with them has been limited. I just can't justify another $100 added to every offshore trip. We always catch and have fun. I guess if I was fishing a money tournament and felt I was in the running, I would make the investment.

My problem is that we fish at or in the Gulf Stream and what was here 5 hours ago can be 20 miles away now.

[diver dave]

http://podaac-esip.jpl.nasa.gov/poet//

For a free site, try this one. It allows you a choice of sats, it seems goes is working better than the polar orbiters that rutgers is using; at least for my area.

[davidd]

carrie-dee,
Try this one http://sstcharts.com.
I used it last year and the coordinates were dead nuts to the temp. breaks. Pretty handy waypoints feature too.
It' a great free site that the guys over at noreast turned me on to last year.
Dave

[Marlintini]

I've used terrafin for the last 2 years.

I think it's reasonably priced at $100 for the year, unlimited access and it will help you find the general area of a temp break.
Also the last couple of years I've attended the Saltwater Seminar Series... for $45 you get a lot of "goodies" including a free Roffs report ($65). I always buy 2 tickets I think the Roffs are the best available but very pricey.
I like to track the direction of the eddies in and around the canyons, Terrafins access let's you do that. The one thing I don't like with Terrafin is the color scale can change from day to day which makes it harder to track the water movement.

[Carrie-Dee]

Thanks guys.

Hey Marlintini... My present boat was called marlintini and had the same graphic you have on your HullTruth signature. The gentleman I bought it from owns and operates Marlintini Charters. Check out his website, it may have a transom shot of my boat in the photo gallery. It's at marlintinicharters.com.

[Marlintini]

That's a bummer.........

That's the first other Marlintini I've seen since my first boat "Marlintini" in 1986.

[UNCWCraig]

www.coastwx.org

[Ocean Breeze]

Try this one
http://www.marine.rutgers.edu/mrs/sat.data2.html

[horseradish]

We used to have Bluewater Fishfinder.com. But, they took everyone's money and scammed out. So....be careful!