cruising guides

i am looking to buy cruising guides for anywhee south of trininda and tobago.incl venezuela and brazil as well as the abc islands.also charts

please email if you can help

thanks in advance alan hanson

al@hansona.fsbusiness.co.uk

Try "Cruising Connections" http://www.cruisingconnections.co.za

They have new and used cruising guides, paper charts and flags (worldwide). Tony Herrick has also compiled cruising notes for some of the areas you intend going to.

Good luck

[JeanneP]

Donald Street's cruising guides to the Caribbean and Venezuela were, in my opinion, excellent. I believe that they are out of print, but you can usually find used copies in various places, including Amazon.com

Chris Doyle also wrote a cruising guide to the Caribbean with some information regarding Trinidad.

Until recently Trinidad wasn't a popular Caribbean cruising destination and so there hasn't been much written about it. I believe you will find the most information from the Seven Seas Cruising Association Commodore's Bulletins. There is a CD of the past 8 years bulletins that I understand can be ordered from their website: http://www.ssca.org

We've been members for a pretty long time, and I think it's a worthwhile organization for cruisers and wannabe cruisers.

Fair winds,

Jeanne

[Jack Tyler]

The most recent guides for the E Caribbean are now done by Steve Pavlidis (Paradise Pubs); Steve's chartlets of the anchorages are excellent. Dodge's guides are good for burger joints and a smattering of local history but I found them disapppointing and poor value. I have a few of Donald Street's old guides, which can still be found via the Web, and believe much of their content to be heavily slanted to a form of cruising no longer done; not as relevant as they should be for today's cruisers.

For other areas you mention (ABCs and VZ) plus other less visited areas of the Caribbean (especially the W and Central Caribbean), I'd recommend two, somewhat opposite references. Visit www.ssca.org and buy their CD of the last 8 years of monthly bulletins (easily searched using Adobe Reader) by going to the store, pubs and ordering the CD. Excellent value and they will cover the Caribbean in redundant, painful detail. Also try to acquire a used copy of Wallace Stone's Caribbean Cruising Guide, last published in the 70's. We found it excellent for off the beaten track places like the south coast of Hispanola, and all the weather and routing strategy content is just as applicable today as 3 decades ago...and it should only cost you a few bucks.

Jack