All of us who boat in the Pacific Northwest, as well as other areas in the U.S. that have a lot of "liquid sunshine," probably have run into the problem of soggy paper charts left in an exposed boat area.

The solution? Use Thompson's Water Seal. I always have some left over after treating our decks at home, but it is available in most hardware stores. Paint the paper charts. Let them dry for about 15 minutes and you end up with inexpensive waterproof charts.

One downside is that pens do not work very well on the sealed charts, but pencils work just fine.

– Ken Sampson