[Shapelib] Converting GSHHS to SHP

[Ben Watson]

Hello all,
	I am trying to get some shapefiles from the GSHHS
(http://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/mgg/shorelines/data/gshhs/) but can't find any
code that will do it. I know that there is a 170MB shoreline shapefile
there, but it doesn't contain polygons (just arcs, it looks like), and
it seems like the original .b files do. I need to create shape files
that contain those polygons.

Does anyone know of a tool that can do it? I'm looking into GRASS, but
I'd rather have some idea of what I'm getting into before installing
cygwin and going the whole nine yards.

I hope my question makes sense. I'm kind of new to the whole GIS thing.

Thank you very much,

Ben Watson