My wife loves to go out on the new to us toon . It's great fun and keeps the kiddos busy. Now while I have great sense of direction, my wife gets lost as soon as she goes two feet off the dock 
. Is there any cheap, reliable, and easy to use navigation aid that would help her find her way around a lake ? I've been working a lot and she wants to go play.
I mean, the most basic Garmin or Hummingbird GPS sets are easy to use, have track history (bread crumbs so she can find her way back to the dock) and run a couple hundred bucks. Otherwise, I assume there's probably a phone app that can do similar..
Google maps on your phone will work. I'm sure there are specific navigation apps too. That's the easy solution.
I have the app Skipper, which is basically a fancy GPS chart plotter for your phone or tablet. It works pretty well.
If your lake isn't all that big, just use the maps program on your phone and drop a pin at the house for her, the phone can say which direction to go.
Just follow the shoreline, you'll eventually get to where you shoved off from!
In my teen years I explored the wild woods behind my folks camp in the Adirondacks. I followed the sun. I new that the sun had to be on my back to get me to familiar territory.
On a lake,pick a land mark. Water tower or similar.
The developer of Harry's Lap Timer has a "Sailor" app for boating. Might be worth looking into.
There's a few decent phone apps that'll load marine charts. On a small-ish lake, that would be a good start.
I'd get a boating GPS. Really makes it easy--well worth the investment.
I find that lakes are very far down on Google's priority list. I used google to plot my favorite fishing spots on the lake where I go in Canada. Turns out my favorite fishing spot is located on an island that is about 1/4 mile away from the actual spot. The map overlay is terrible.
Real dedicated fishing GPS units are expensive. I would find an app.
How big of a lake are we talking about? If it is a large man-made lake from flooding a valley that has a lot of coves and such I can see it being a bit confusing. So, you don't necessarily want nautical charts or anything super sophisticated, but just something that will point the way home?
I just started using the Navionics app on my phone. They have a bunch of different versions but I'm using the US only one (vs US + Canada and others) and it's like $10 per year. So far I've been very impressed, both on my larger local lakes and on the backwater tidal creeks down on the coast. They have a web app version on their website so you can poke around and see how good your local lake coverage is. FWIW their aps are used by a lot of long-term cruisers as a back-up to the dedicated onboard GPS charting units. If you have a tablet with GPS it's even better.
Tie a balloon to the end of your dock.
I would say go for one of the cheaper model Garmans. Less expensive then a lost phone overboard. You don't have to worry about weak cell tower coverage. Most are waterproof. Has the ability to store way points if there is a beach or place to swim, marina for gas ,a place you like to fish, etc. Most Garmans are very easy to use without ever looking though a manual or website.
pirate wrote: I would say go for one of the cheaper model Garmans. Less expensive then a lost phone overboard. You don't have to worry about weak cell tower coverage. Most are waterproof. Has the ability to store way points if there is a beach or place to swim, marina for gas ,a place you like to fish, etc. Most Garmans are very easy to use without ever looking though a manual or website.
If you are concerned about your phone hardware or aren't comfortable with a drybag on the phone, that's a great option. A lot of the newer phones are waterproof and most people take their phone on the boat as a safety precaution anyway though. Also, the GPS function on the phone doesn't require cell coverage, and most of the apps allow you to download a selected map area, so you don't need data to run the navigation.
Teach her how to read a compass.
This reminds me of a guy I met once. We went out sailing with the boss doc on his sailboat. There was some kind of doctor's little helper (DLH) with us. Talking with him, he said that he used to hire out as crew on sailboats for rich people. He said he would go around the Caribbean, etc., and "went half way across the Atlantic once." I asked him what "half way" was all about. They got half way and their GPS (AKA "Sat Nav") stopped working. I said "Didn't you have a sextant onboard?" "Yeah, but nobody knew how to use it." Berkeleying dangerous 'tards. They made it back by looking for jet aircraft flying overhead and guessing where they were probably going.
I second Woody, fly a surplus barrage balloon, get a tall flagpole and huge flag and paint the house a bright garish neon color and then teach her to read a compass
Assuming this is docked at a marina or your house, it can't hurt to get a chart of the area and keep it on the boat. Google maps has done an excellent job approximating my location everywhere I've been thus far, including 35k feet in airplane mode. Between a chart and a phone, she should be able to locate herself.
A chart is also handy if the depthfinder, it's circuit breaker, or aux power switch fails to get turned on. Not a huge issue in a pontoon boat, but it's nice to know approximately what's under you.
I'm a big fan of paper charts, but of course the NOAA doesn't provide charts for inland waters like lakes. Most lakes of any size have maps available though, usually at the sporting goods section of the closest Wal Mart. Problem is that it's really hard to know what a map means to you if you don't know how to find your position (like with a sextant for instance, LOL)
As an aside on this topic, the NOAA just released a document detailing their plans moving into the near future. One of the things that stands out is they will be discontinuing paper charts and only supporting digital systems.
And just how the hell are you supposed to plot a sun line on a digital system? Draw on the screen with a marker? Punch a hole in it with a caliper?
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