Cruising the
coral carpet is the one for the
Philippines. It's a bit dated now but a very enjoyable book.
Northern Palawan and Busuanga in the
Philippines and the NE coast of Sabah are pretty hard to beat as cruising grounds. There is a need for a little more independance than say
Thailand or the Malaysian peninsular. But that makes it all the more special. These areas are all perfectly safe.
Charts.
Malaysia they are all accurate. Philippines, they are a few choices. The official NAMRIA charts are basically a rehash of a US
Navy survey dating from the early to mid 1900's, with a few updates for lights (which are often not lit) and the odd TSS. To my knowledge, they still don't produce an electronic set. I ended up making my own georeferenced set from the US
survey which I still use for
anchorages. I haven't found anything approaching the accuracy of these old charts.
The Cmap that we cruisers love has nowhere near the detail necessary although there is a new S57 set doing the rounds which is a bit better. I have found the
Navionics charts on my
phone to be by far the best option. If I was equipping my
boat from scratch, I'd seriously be looking at a tablet and the
Navionics charts as my primary. For the Philippines
Linear Mode
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