Exploring Vancouver Island's West Coast: A Cruising Guide

Excellent presentation. Unlike many cruising guides, articles include not only the various sites and services but also practical tips concerning safe navigation of the various areas!

Since I berth at Anacortes all summer, and boat BC often, I own a half dozen Northwest cruising guides. This is a good one. The other reviewer covers the details well. All I'll add is, "Excellent book." Wauyne Heinz, author of, How to Catch Salmon, Sturgeon, Lingcod, Rockfish, and Halibut Along the Pacific Coast: Fish On!

If you are planning a cruise South Coast BC (Gulf Islands, Desolation, Broughtons and Blundon Harbour) this book is a must. For frame of reference: My husband and I cruise on a small sailboat, anchor every evening (meaning we do not pull to dock) and go ashore to reprovision, sightsee, launder and take warm showers. Our trips are usually 2 months or less in length. OK, so we have used several different books to cruise this area and have found ourselves referring to and trusting this one the most. If I had cruise with one book only, this would be it. The book's chapters are organized by logical, small area cruising grounds. The author gives an overview of the area and then segments out the waterways, coves, anchorages, etc. He tells you where they are (referring to other land, water points, charts and waypoints) and will also give waypoints for important things like entrances and anchoring. From there the author talks about the area in general, protection from winds, the bottom, what is there and how to best explore it, how the regulars anchor, on and on. He also provides VERY detailed maps for each area including, but not limited to fathoms, ground characteristics, anchoring notations... he also provides wonderfully detailed maps/information on marinas (piers, fuel dock, offices and their phone and monitored VHF numbers, dink dock restrooms, garbage, the pub!...), town info., boat/engine services, and the like. Each section also includes information on special things to note like rapids (characteristics and how to deal with them), traversing difficult waterways, tidal issues (like drying entrances to anchorages), and where his reader might likely spy a pod of orcas. The book is extremely accurate. If he does not know something (like what the holding is in an anchorage) he will tell you. I have only found one relatively minor mistake in the book and that was on a map for Broughton Island. Back of the book items cover the usual info. on border crossing, VHF radio channel info. (Also found this a little outdated - but to be fair there are changes ongoing), fishing regs., and how they document local knowledge (made us confident that their onfo. was reliable - and it was). Somewhere in the book there is a notation of a website you can go to with any updates or corrections. So, lots of useful information, lots of historical and quirk information, easy book to use, well thought out and thorough. The ONLY negatives I can come up with is the lovely pictures could be in color, it could be spiral bound (which is easier to deal with when you are glancing at it from the helm and making last minute anchorage changes), and it could be fitted to deal with moist and downright wet conditions. That is merely a nit-picky little wish list!