About the Designer

I’ve been an illustrator since high school—more than 35 years—and somewhere along the way I developed a real love for cartography. Creating the California Delta Map gave me the opportunity to combine both passions into what you might call the perfect navigational storm: a highly detailed boating map on one side and a hand-illustrated guide to the Delta on the other. Every new edition is carefully reworked, researched and updated on both sides. The illustrated map is especially challenging because one seemingly simple change can open a can of worms. Add a new marina, restaurant or business and suddenly everything around it may need to move—the neighboring businesses, waterways, roads, islands, marshes and landmarks—all while keeping the geography recognizable and the finished map fun and easy to explore.

The navigation side carries an entirely different responsibility: accuracy matters on the water. Much of the California Delta is surprisingly shallow, and changing tides can make already shallow areas even more difficult to navigate. That’s why I spend so much time updating depth information, caution areas, submerged hazards and other details boaters need to know. I’ve worked with local marine professionals, including TowBoatUS/Vessel Assist, as well as expert fishing tours, boaters and people who know these waterways firsthand, because the Delta is constantly changing. Channel markers are particularly important—when you’re surrounded by miles of winding waterways, levees and marshland that can look remarkably similar from a boat, those markers can be the difference between knowing exactly where you are and wondering where on earth you just ended up.