Previous research has examined heuristics--simplified decision-making rules-of-thumb--for geospatial reasoning. This study examined at two locations the influence of beliefs about local coastline orientation on estimated directions to local and distant places; estimates were made immediately or after fifteen seconds. This study goes beyond well-known effects of alignment, rotation, and orthogonalization. Although residents at both locations widely assume a north-south coastline with ocean lying to the west, it actually runs east-west at the second location with ocean to the south. This created constant errors from the second location not seen from the first. Response delay had very little effect.