OK. We have received and devoured the books on the list below.

Cruising South - What to Expect on the ICW is a very nice chatty book. In Victorian and Edwardian times, travellers often used to write a sort of travelogue memoire about their trip. This is that sort of book. If you are looking at something that would give yourself or your partner a good feeling about your plan to head on south in your boat then this book would be a good start. There are otheres that would be better for actual planning.

Skipper Bob's Achorages along the ICW is a book that everyone has recommended and now that I have read through it, I can understand why. Especially when used in when used in conjunction with other guides and charting software. It is particularly useful when looking at other stop overs that are off the ICW somewhat. He also lists a lot more of the free docks that are available en route - stay free if you eat at the restauraunt, or your docking fees are applied to the restauraunt bill, etc.

"A Cruising Guide to Florida Keys 12th ed looks really interesting. The details of each of the main ports in the Keys is of great use to us in planning. The author has answered a lot of the questions that I had been asking myself during the planning process. What is the best channel in if you draw 6'; can you get through to the other side of the KEys here as would appear on the chart?; what is the anchorage like? is it full of moorings?, etc.


ICW Cockpit Cruising Handbook 5th ed will be very useful to keep up on deck in the cockpit. Nice and compact with much of the same info contained in the Managing the ICW Guide. It also contains a small amount of specific info on the places you are passing to make for an interesint read and particular hazards to watch out for.

Inlet Chartbook Southeast US 3rd edhas been particularly good in helping me decide what inlets I will not be trying to poke our nose into. I was thinking about spots to poke into as we go along the New Jersey shoreline, but now I am thinking of just biting the bullet and jumping all the way to Virginia.

Doing a lot of reading, planning, and dreaming...

Getting almost painful not having the boat in the water and sailing.....


01/22/2008 10:45:43

Part of our planning process is the chart work that goes ahead of time. NELLEKE uses the Captn charting software and hooks it to our GPS for position fixing. During the times that she is up on the hard, we have the computer at home and have great fun planning courses, stopovers, places to visit, etc. In the case of our getaway this fall, the planning and dreaming has assumed new intensity. We have solicited advice from several friends who have done more cruising south of the US Canada border and have bought several books to help in the process.

The first was "Managing the Waterway - Chesapeake to Biscayne" which we have used to plot out the legs of the trip with several alternates. It also has a pretty good list of anchorages as well as Marinas. we will be tending toward anchorages since we will be on a fixed cruising budget and will be pinching pennies.

We have several other books on order that we have had recommended:

1. Skipper Bob's "Anchorages Along the ICW 12th ed"

2. "A Cruising Guide to Florida Keys 12th ed"

3. "Cruising South What to Expect Along the ICW"

4. "ICW Cockpit Cruising Handbook 5th ed"

5. "Inlet Chartbook Southeast US 3rd ed"

Thise should do us for a start. Any comments from readers woudl be appreciated. I'll be tyhe first to admit that my experience along the eastern US coast is limited beyond NYC. Anytime that I have been sailing south of that point it has been offshore delivering wealthier people's boats and other that one or two spots where I had to come in due to weather or for maintenance I know little about the area. Even if I did, when I was sailing down that way was 30+ years ago and I woudl imagine that things have changed.