Help with digital charts for Leeward Islands

[SierraHiker]

Greetings:
My wife and I will be cruising in the Leeward Islands for the next year or so. For navigation I'm trying MacENC on a Macbook Air with a BU-353S4 GPS and NOAA digital charts for the Bodega Bay area. With all that preparation, which works well, I'm finding it hard to figure out who sells good digital charts of the Leewards? The high end integrated charts and local info seems to go along with expensive GPS display systems and all I can find for MacENC is one digital chart that includes all of South America and the entire Caribbean, all for $299US. Can anyone suggest a better set of charts of the Leewards, or even all of the Caribbean, compatible with MacENC?

Thanks,

SierraHiker

PS. I'm one of the few NROTC Midshipmen who summered aboard the battleship USS Wisconsin in the late '50's. Anyone else out there who was also aboard?

[ullar]

Hi,

NV-charts have both digital and paper charts for Leewards. Here is the link to their web-site: http://us.nvcharts.com/index.php?page=categorie&cat=20

Cheers,
Üllar

[s/v Moondancer]

Once you get in an anchorage in the Caribbean some cruiser will have the full worldwide CM93 load for OpenCPN.

The important thing to realize is that once you leave Miami all chart systems will not be accurate enough for 'blind navigation.' Use of the 'mark one eyeball' is essential. When we entered Spanish Waters in Curacao both our Navionics and OpenCPN showed us in the Hyatt hotel swimming pool!

For 6 years, in the Caribbean, we used the chartplotter to find the island, the Doyle guide books for local navigational information and our eyes to work our way into anchorages. We met several cruisers who hit bottom relying on the chartplotter!

Enjoy!

[SierraHiker]

Thanks to both of you for your information and insights to Caribbean cruising. Actually, we've done quite a number of 2 weekers in the BVI over the years and we know that area really well with respect to small, quiet anchorages. Now, with our own Lagoon, we are trying out the Leeswards and having electronic maps seemed like a good idea.

Happy sailing,

SierraHiker

[phiggins]

SierraHiker, Your request got me to complete my GE2KAP charts of the eastern Caribbean. I had already done most of the western part. So if you follow this link you will find charts of the Leeward islands. It also includes some of the other islands like Aruba and Curaco:

https://1drv.ms/f/s!Ahv3fXEZ5SzkjRSGzrpJUj7Vl0VR