During our recent cruise through Alaska’s “Inside passage,” I turned on my GPS hiking trail tracking app on my phone. I was able to leave the app on throughout the trip although it got complicated when my phone got low on power or we lost internet contact.

I discovered the phone was getting the GPS signal no matter the quality or existence of an internet connection. When I had to re-charge the phone battery but was not near a power supply, I had to turn the phone off. During this time, the app wasn’ recording our position. When re-charged and on, the app would then assume a straight line from the point of shut-down to the point of power-on, hence the dramatic straight lines over land, and elsewhere, on the track.

Here is the detail of our travels from first port of call: Ketchikan, bottom right, to Skagway, top, and then the northern part of the return leg back south to Victoria and Seattle.