Recommended Cruising Guide/Charts

[EpicAdventure]

This is probably somewhere in a thread already but I'm not finding it. (There is the sticky on books in general but I didn't come across much on cruising guides.)

So, I'm looking for cruising guides for a year cruising down the ICW and into the the Caribbean -- probably no further south than the BVIs.

Anyone have cruising guides to recommend for those areas?

Are there any good chart "atlases" out there? Or do folks generally just buy individual charts?

[PorFin]

Epic,

I'm sure there are many out there to choose from, but these are ones we've used.

Guides For the ICW, Skipper Bob Publications has a couple of volumes worth a look -- one on marinas and another on anchorages. We also found the Great Circle Route cruising guide useful. They're not widely available in stores, but worth the wait if you order them on the net.

Charts
> Hard to go wrong with the MapTech ChartKit books. You'll get a marine version of the AAA tripbook, together with a companion CD that has electronic versions of the charts. These are available in marine stores, but usually only for the local area. I'd recommend ordering all the ones you need before you begin to head south.

> You can also download electronic versions of charts off the net.

We'd also recommend that you not forget a current Reed's Almanac for reference on tides.

[Donnie631]

Download Files by State

[xort]

Also include ActiveCaptain - The free, interactive cruising guidebook. It's user generated ratings and comments in an interactive chart format.