If You Were Going to Buy a Cruising Guide: To the Windwards ? To the Leewards ?

[thomaswaier]

So many choices available...
Which publications do you prefer - the popular cruising guides or something that is less publized?
Appreciate your comments and suggestions.

[osirissail]

I have always been a Chris Doyle fan and have used or looked carefully at just about all of the different brands. I prefer the various Chris Doyle series because of his use of easily understood chartlets and his great organization of the printed information into need to know entry/exit info first and then harbor/bay info then local activities and the various commercial vendors and stores. And the biggie - he has an active website to publish the latest updates between the guide book publication and today.
- - For non-mainline guide books, I purchased a French Cruising Guide book in Guadeloupe that was excellent albeit only in French. It has very large aerial photos rather than drawn chartlets and I love aerial photos believing that a photo is worth a thousand words.

[sestina]

Another vote for Chris Doyle.

Personally I think aerial photos are a waste of space, they don't tell me any more than a good chart can. In any event I'm at sea level, not 2,000 feet up! I love the sea level views you get on old charts.

[colemj]

Doyle.

Street's guide is very old and outdated. In the most current revision, he describes finding customs on one island as next to the telegraph office.

Mark

[cayennita]

I have cruised both the windwards and leewards extensively. I have both guides and also Spanish for cruisers 2nd edition and French for cruisers. Also i use the maptech program for my naigation and for charts. I do carry paper charts but rarely used them. Be careful with the Rasta charts on the CD's. Some of the ones from Iolaire puts my boat on top of a dormant volcano in St. Vincent and another one on top of a reef entering Guadaloupe from the South. Chris Doyle welcomes input from cruisers with any kind of useful information and updates his guides frequently.
You can find him at Power Boats in Chaguaramas, Trinidad on the hard just about every hurricane season.

[maxingout]

We used the bulletins from the SSCA. There was a wealth of information in the SSCA bulletins for every destination wherever we went in the Caribbean and the world.

[speedoo]

Has anyone used the new Pavlidis guides? He recently released guides to both the Windwards and Leewards.

[Janice]

Chris Doyle is the best. I had a few of the latest Pavladis books for the Bahamas, but found that they very very out dated.

[Jerry Woodward]

We used Doyle's for a first time bareboat in St Martin and found it to be extremely useful. We needed a dentist in Gustavia and Doyle's had the phone number of one. We phoned up in the late afternoon and got an appointment 9am the next morning.