Stuff That Works: Cruising Guides Part 2

Welcome to another installment of Stuff That Works. We like Stuff That Works. As inspiration strikes, we will write about the stuff that has worked well for us on our trip. We will use the tags #stuffthatworks and #stuffwelike so search for those tags if you want to read more on the topic.

Today’s post is more info about the Cruising Guides we’ve used on this trip. To review, our trip has taken us from Victoria, Canada, down the US west coast to Mexico where we spent the winter. Last spring we sailed from Banderas Bay, Mexico to the Marquesas in French Polynesia. We spent three months making our way across French Polynesia before sailing on to Suwarrow in the Cook Islands, American Samoa, Tonga and finally to New Zealand. My previous post focussed on Cruising Guides for the South Pacific. In this post I’ll cover what got us from Canada to Mexico.

US West Coast and Baja West Coast

We used Charlie’s Charts to guide us down the US West Coast and the Baja Peninsula. There are two volumes to cover the distance–Charlie’s Charts: U.S. Pacific Coast and Charlie’s Charts: Western Coast of Mexico Including Baja California and the sea of Cortez. The guides gave us the basic information we needed. They aren’t fancy but they work. They are text-based mainly with some black and white chartlets. It is important to note that we went from Neah Bay, Washington to San Francisco with just one stop in Crescent City. This means that we didn’t use the guide for any of the tricky bar crossings and harbours on that stretch of the trip. This means that the basic information they contain was fine for us. We didn’t need more detail for what we did. Also, the Mexico guide covers more than just the Baja Peninsula but that’s all we used it for. There are only a few possible stops along that stretch of coastline. The guides gave us the info we needed. We used another set of guides once we got to Cabo San Lucas.

The Mexico: Sea of Cortez and Mainland

Once we got to Cabo San Lucas we switched over and started using Shawn Breeding and Heather Bansmer’s guides–Sea of Cortez: A Cruiser’s Guidebook and Pacific Mexico: A Cruiser’s Guidebook. (Cruisers refer to them as Shawn and Heather’s guides.) These guides are the gold standard of cruising guides. They have colour photos and charts showing anchorages. They have GPS waypoints for key anchorages and danger spots to watch for. Additionally, they go beyond navigational information and include key things to see and do onshore in many spots.

Navionics

Navionics is not a cruising guide. It is charting software. We use it on our iPads. (I will write more about charting software in an upcoming post.) I have included it here because Navionics users can post comments and add key details to the charts. It’s a bit like Wikipedia but for charting.

We find the user comments helpful when scouting out an unfamiliar anchorage or deciding where to go next. Of course, as with all user generated content, one must be careful to use one’s own good judgement when considering a user’s comment but one has to do the same with a cruising guide too.

Passage Planning

We use Jimmy Cornell’s World Cruising Routes 9th Edition for big picture planning. His book doesn’t tell us which day to leave on a passage but it does tell us the season we should be making the passage. Also, it gives us general waypoints to use on our passages. It is indispensable. It’s fun to look at possible passage routes even though most of the time I know we’ll never make the passage.

Links-Resources

Here are links to the guides I wrote about in this post and the previous post on the topic. I have included links but do your own research. You may be able to find more recent editions or better prices elsewhere.

Soggy Paws

Charlie’s Charts: U.S. Pacific Coast

Charlie’s Charts: Western Coast of Mexico Including Baja California and the sea of Cortez

Pacific Mexico: A Cruiser’s Guidebook

Sea Of Cortez: A Cruiser’s Guidebook

World Cruising Routes 9th Edition by Jimmy Cornell