GPS and the Grassy Ledge conspiracy

September, 1999

By Tom Snyder

I have recently penetrated deep within the Byzantine bureaucracy of our government-operated GPS chartplotting technology. My discovery, the result of a happy accident while cruising Casco Bay, is not for the fainthearted. This whole damned thing makes me want to scream. (Sorry I snapped.)

First things first. I love my GPS as much as the next guy, but I’m not crazy enough to depend on it. So I carry another GPS just in case. Also, of course, I prudently carry a third GPS wrapped in tinfoil in the bilge. So it is with confidence that I plan to chuck my paper charts and also that plastic parallel thingy that people once used in the olden days.

In June, I pulled into The Goslings to anchor for the night (I was on my boat.) My chartplotter placed me right at the entrance to the cove. Suddenly, I froze in fear because there before me was an island that did not appear at all on my GPS chartplotter.

Now, I don’t mind the occasional nun being misplaced (no offense) (nun taken), but AN ENTIRE ISLAND MISSING! Not just a rock, but an island with real islandy things like grass and cheerful written warnings from owner/environmentalists.

That night, at anchor, I tried to put my crazy world back in order. Initially, I assumed I was at fault, trying to write it off as a vicious optical illusion. But then I dinghied over and sat on the island, which to me was very convincing.

You are now saying, “Just another story about a perceptive guy with an uncanny nose for the unvarnished truth.” But no, tragically, this story will achieve proportions of tragic proportions. Think about it: Who stood to gain from a cover-up on this level? Who indeed.

Down below, several cans of lentil soup later, I felt my composure returning. (There is nothing like the secure feeling of seeing your shipboard barometer point to ‘Fair Weather.’) Then it hit me like a ton of heavy things. How could I have missed it? The name of the island stared up at me from the paper chart – “Grassy Ledge.”

“Grassy Ledge!”

Are you thinking what I’m thinking? Grassy Ledge…grassy knoll. Suddenly an island is missing? Second gunman. See where I’m headed? One shot fired from a book suppository, a second shot fired from coastal Maine. CIA… Al Gore… beginning to see the big picture?

I am not done with this travesty yet. And my pledge of quality to Casco Bay is that I shall remain here for you to the very end.

Television producer Tom Snyder (“Dr. Katz”) lives in Cambridge, Mass. with his wife, Anne, and children. He sails his Island Packet 350, Blue Moon, out of Hingham, Mass. and Peaks Island, Maine.