I''m thinking we maybe should take this off-line; others must be getting pretty bored with us.<g>
I used the very first edition of VanSant''s guide and it was (relatively speaking) horrible. We used the most current edition in 2000 (6th at the time, as I recall) and I''m not sure I would have sprung for a newer version...so it depends. If your parent''s copy has abundant waypoints referenced for all the anchorages and stops, subsequent improvements are probably in degrees, not orders of magnitude. (A 20 yr old copy sounds w-a-y too dated, tho'').
Re: guide availability in the Caribbean, they are generally hard to find. You''ll find two multi-island chandelries down island: Budget Marine and Island Waterworld (I think I have those right...) and they are both great, especially when you really need something and happen to be on an island where they''re located. There are other spots where yachtie stuff is available (like a West Marine on
PR''s east coast). But with exceptions like those, guides and inter-island chart series are generally not available where you''ll be stopping because many of the stops (tho'' certainly not all) are not exclusively yachtie ports.
So...what to do? It''s quite common for folks to leave with the ''first batch'' in hand and wait on the rest. For an offshore run from the Bahamas to
PR such as Sadie is considering, you would carry the
PR guide (Hwy 65 is Plan A), plus the Pavlidis guide for T&C since the T&C might turn out to be Plan B and it includes the approaches to Luperon DR, which will likely follow if you stop in the T&C. Once in
PR - the Land of 800#s and USPS service; don''t underestimate the value of either! - you can order in the next batch you can''t find locally, sucking up the postage cost and time delay because that''s the price of not buying more upfront.
When planning to head down island, you have many target boats coming the other way from whom you can hopefully buy relatively fresh charts and guides. Look for larger, newer yachts (''richer'' owners, ideally finishing up their ''sabatical cruise'') who don''t expect to get 50 cents on the dollar. Waiting until Ft. Lauderdale (where you can dink/walk to Blue Water Books) will give you a chance to hook up with those boats. (Don''t overlook using the Cruiseheimers Net on 8.104 USB while still coming down the East Coast, explaining you''re looking...).
If you are heading S in the Spring, you''ll find boats coming back at that same time, and so subsequent purchases for islands further S might be possible; going S in the Fall, that option is more limited.
Good luck on all this prep stuff; don''t forget you owe us all a Term Paper on how it all went once you get down there!
Jack