East Coast Cruising Guides

[lorenzo b]

We're talking about leaving the Keys in May and heading up to the Cape Cod area for the summer and need to read some cruising guides.
We are large and draw 6.5 ft.
What are your must have favorites?
Thank you

[Pblais]

Sort of depends on where you plan on going. The ICW won't be an easy road for most of the way. With 6.5 draft I wouldn't do any of it save for a few inlets at larger cities that have full draft shipping ports and a few rivers. It's OK for 5 ft plus a little change but not a lot more.

For the Chesapeake, the Chesapeake Bay Magazine does one of the best guides for any place and is rich with anchorages and attractions many of which you can't get into because of draft but some you can. Probably enough to spend some time there though. It's a good place to hang out in May and June when New England can suck. You can watch for when the summer starts and then jump off. It would take you from Cape Henry, VA to Cape May, NJ all inland all deep with possible side trips like Norfolk, Annapolis, Baltimore or a side trip to DC. You could get to our T dock.

If you have specific areas you want to go to then perhaps we can get a few members to help out with ideas. We have memebrs everyplace.

[Tempest245]

Lorenzo,

I also use waterway guides and have found them to be very good and I like their format.

Chesapeake Bay is well worth seeing, I'll defer to Paul's suggestion of the best cruising guide for there. Portsmouth was a good stop, Annapolis is a must.

From New York and above, I also carry a copy of the Cruising Guide to the New England Coast.
It's in book form, authors (4) are Duncans and Fenns. Lots of good tips and local information. They cover just about everything. I would highly recommend it.

I'll be heading to Cape Cod and beyond by June...maybe I'll see you there.

[DennisM]

I have the Waterway Guide. I used it all last season and loved it. I just registered for ActiveCaptain and will enjoy having that info, also, for this summer's cruise. They both look like great sources to me.

[Curmudgeon]

If you buy the latest Rose Point software it has a cruising guide built right in. MapTech and others make print cruising guides, but I find myself using the laptop more and more.

The one print publication I would never cruise the Northeast without is the current edition of Eldrige's little yellow book. See the link below.
Robert White

[DennisM]

I used Eldridge all last season, Curmudgeon. This year, I splurged for the Navionics app on my Iphone which has all that information and eliminates a lot of the calculations. I know, I know... I'm sounding like an Iphone spammer. I'm thinking a backup copy of Eldridge is still a good idea.

[Curmudgeon]

Assuming one has the iPhone, how much does a subscription to the Navionics app cost? The book is $14.

[DennisM]

I forget. I think it was about $40, but it's also a chart plotter and weather app, among other things.

[Tempest245]

Play nice in the sandbox boys!

Speaking as a Boater and Consumer. I want as much information as is available to me, before, during and even after my trip. I use the internet, google earth, cruising guides, eldridge, active captain, these nets, and whatever other information is available to me. I have a chartplotter, handheld, paper charts, compass, laptop, cell phone with internet capabilities, Handheld bearing compass, manual and electronic speed log, and manual and electronic wind speed, ships radios and handheld radios, cruising guides and cruising books aboard. And this year, I hope to install radar and AIS. I use AIS over the net now with a cell signal.

I'm not going to sea...with one tool in my bag!

I like electronics, but I also like paper.

I have often had a crew member sitting in the cockpit with me reading from the paper cruising guide as I pilot my way into a new port....I find much of the piloting guidance very useful.... it's much easier, for me to direct a crew member to read a guide, than go down and mess with my laptop. For me, it's not about either or...it's about which tool is best at the time. They are all useful.

I take the cruising guide into the library all the time....haven't done that with the laptop yet!.. :-)

[doug86]

Originally Posted by Tempest245

Play nice in the sandbox boys!
I have often had a crew member sitting in the cockpit with me reading from the paper cruising guide as I pilot my way into a new port...)

Yup, easily done from your iPhone or iPad. And not even with a cell signal. It will all be downloaded each time you are near land. In just a few years, your chartplotter will automatically update to the latest LNM via WiFi or cellular, and your chart will show exactly where the buoys were as of last week, not last chart PUB date.

The debate will boil down to accurate, recent data, not how that data is presented. Paper cannot hope to compete with the immediacy of digital data transmitted right to your boat.

Oh, and you can always print out the new data with a printer, and actually have the piece of paper on your bridge. The reverse isn't true: you can't hold that paper guide up in the air and ask it to re-print the pages with the most up-to-date data.

[sarafina]

I like both mediums, but I lean towards the electronic downloaded and saved on my laptop. That way I need no internet to access the data. If the lap top craps out I have paper as well.

Something to remember... those electronics can fail... but so can the paper...

What? You have never tried to open something on the boat and have it frozen into a solid mass of inky wood pulp and mildew because it got wet?

I get the laminated charts for just that reason... and because I like to draw and erase on them!

[Hugh Maclean]

We bought the app last year and updated it last week East Coast USA was $6 - and gives full chart coverage with GPS from the iPhone

[Curmudgeon]

The point is, that whether you get it electronically or via paper, the information in Eldridge's is extremely useful, more so than anything you will find in a cruising guide.

I have verizon with a Motorola Razor2, so iPhone apps are not available to me. I do have a laptop with Rose Point, which I use as my primary trip planning tool, with paper chars as the backup.

And there is nothing better than experience. When you get to Block Island, try eating at a restaurant other than the Oar. You won't find that in the cruising guide lol.

[Speedy]

I've found the Embassy Guides to be very helpful: Embassy Guides

I also recently bought Skippe Bob's GUide to anchorages along the ICW, and it also has some helpful information in it: Anchorages Along the Intracoastal Waterway by Skipper Bob

We've cruised from Block Island to Downeast Maine for the past 12 seasons. There are a lot of places to go that are easily reached in a day, and many places to hole up in bad weather.