Where are we, who has the chart?

On land the options of where to drive is really based upon roads that are available.  You might choose to go by interstate, two lane back roads or try for the dirt option but you are basely going where someone else has gone before you.  It makes decision making a little easier because you are following a path and your decisions are turn left/right or change roads.  Using a GPS in the car is nice because you are really never lost and the system will recalculate your route if you put in a final destination.
For boating there are not a lot of common points with land navigation.  You can use GPS to calculate your route but there are not defined roads so when it calculates sometimes it can take over areas you might want to avoid.  The maps/charts for marine navigation will show depth of the water, make sure you check if it is high tide or low time numbers.  The charts will also show items and other items you might want to avoid.
On our first boating trip GPS was out but it only gave Latitude and Longitude numbers that we then plotted onto a paper, yes paper, chart.  Every hour we took our reading and plotted it in case the GPS system went down we would at least have a good idea where we were.  Once you are able to see land then you can navigate by visual landmarks but when no land is available it is not an option,  Of course you could have gone with the sextant to take sighting and plot your course that way as well, not very easy to just pick up the skill.
Now there are many different software/programs you can choice from for your vessel.  All of them will use many of the same charts but how you see it, where you see, it and how you interact with it are all different.  As usual there is a spreadsheet made, data collected, opinions asked for, research on what others are using, and finally a selection.  On our last trip we used a software from Rose Point called Coastal Explorer.  This time in our review it came out as our winner.  Later we found out that the registration we had on the old version was still good so no additional charges and we just updated the software, score !!!!
Now we are able to play with the software on our laptops, view anchorages, make routes for the future, and get to know some of the navigation of the software.  There are some new items on it, tracking other boats through AIS, ships transmit a signal that shows up on radar or AIS systems to show who and where the boats are.  Radar can also be overlaid on the charts.  The charts will show the normal info but you can also overlay a satellite view of the area as well.  You can view weather forecast and tidal information as well.  The software can be on multiple laptops/tablets so you can have one at the helm and another below all viewing the same info. So now we have one more thing to keep us focused on mid-March 2021 :)