It is unfathomable to me why they were not using the detailed charts.

If planning in a hotel room, then it would be easiest to actually unlock the charts that were already on his computer - there is no reason to go back to the boat and double check with a chart plotter.

It is more unlikely that he would be carrying his paper charts around with him off the boat.

Actually, if his planning was done in a hotel room, then there is no excuses. He could have instantly pulled up a google earth picture, searched the internet for information, read the actual piloting guide, etc.

But the real puzzler here is that even on the poor world base map, that area was marked "shoals", colored blue, and showed depths of 40' - where all else is 3,000'

I'm as skilled a navigator as you are Jon, so maybe you have more insight on why a navigator in the middle of very deep ocean everywhere decided to run right over something clearly marked "SHOALS", in a different color, and showing rapid and remarkable shallowing - without ever once being concerned and pulling up other information?

Seems to me that rule #1 of deep open-ocean navigation would be to not run over anything labeled "SHOALS" without further investigation. No?

Mark