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From: Rosalie B. (no email)
Date: Thu Mar 11 2004 - 09:08:25 EST
On Thu, 11 Mar 2004 06:48:39 -0500, you wrote:
>Hello All,
> My wife and I plan to head north in a few months to explore the Chesapeake, Philadelphia, New York City, Mystic Seaport, Long Island and maybe up to Cape Cod. Not sure we will get any farther north before we head south to warmer weathers.
> We are in need of a cruising guide or two for the areas we want to travel. Given our planned itinerary and our trip south in the ICW once we reach Norfolk does anyone have a favorite cruising guide they would recommend?
> Any information would be a help.
>Thanks in advance!
>Fred Taylor
>S/Y Dragonfly
The guides I use the most are also the least expensive - Skipper Bob's
books - one on ICW anchorages and one on marinas. Even if you intend
to anchor most of the time, I'd get the marina one too. It is the
only guide which I know of that has pricing information and tells you
approx (as of June in the year published) how much it will cost to
stay there, fuel prices, availability of courtesy cars etc.
And even if you expect to go to marinas most nights, I'd get the
anchorage guide too. The anchorage guide has in it the correct names
and hailing frequencies for the bridges, and it's worth the money for
that alone. These books cover the whole east coast all the way up to
the Hudson.
I don't know where you are starting from, and we have not been north
of the Chesapeake, but here's what I use for the Chesapeake and ICW.
For the Chesapeake I highly recommend the guide put out by Chesapeake
Bay magazine. This gives the history of the area and little
sketches/charts and talks about anchorages and marinas and trips
ashore, provisioning etc.
I also have and really recommend that you get a Chesapeake Bay chart
kit (the bay is a big area).
Some people also like the Gunkholer's Guide by William Shellenburger
for the Chesapeake, but that's especially good for folks who are
exploring the Chesapeake in a more exhaustive way IMHO rather than
just passing through and hitting the high spots. He gives each little
tributary an analysis including services available, anchoring
possibilities, beauty of the shoreline etc. Similarly, I have a
Maryland chart kit, and a guide to the Potomac, but that's not
probably of interest for someone passing through.
Going south, the ICW guides are good basic guides (one Central and one
Southern) which have marinas and anchorages, but which are often a bit
behind because of publishing lead times. I regard it as like your big
fat cookbook, which you don't use much except as a reference. They
have marina information (approach depth, dockside depth, fuel
availability, # of transient slips, phone numbers which Skipper Bob
has too) but also has little harbor sketches so you know where to look
for the marinas and they also have some anchoring info and history of
the area.
Most people use the Maptech chart kit which goes from Norfolk to
Fernandina Beach at the north end of Florida. WARNING: If you want to
go farther south than that you will need the Florida chartkit in
addition.
I also have the Kettlewell's Intercoastal Waterway Chartbook which
goes from Norfolk all the way to Miami. This is a small (9x12)
notebook sized chartkit which is sort of like an AAA triptik. This is
a handier size in the cockpit, but it doesn't have a lot of
information for side trips off the ICW.
For a cruising guide, I really like Claiborne Young's guides - there
are 4 for the ICW and associated areas - 1) North Carolina 2) South
Carolina and Georgia 3) Eastern Florida (our of print at the moment)
and 4) Florida Keys. These have really good anchoring and gunkholing
guides -lots of interesting history - for the whole boating area of
each book and not just the ICW. I do not recommend the charts that go
along with these books - not only are they quite expensive (about $75
each) but they are hard bound quite large heavy books which IMHO will
not be useable underway. His anchoring information is particularly
good for areas of large tides like SC and Georgia. He also reviews
marinas for amenities, but not price.
grandma Rosalie
S/V RosalieAnn, Leonardtown, MD
CSY 44 WO #156
http://home.mindspring.com/~gmbeasley/id2.html
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