Product Description

Nowhere does the tourist motto Super, National British Columbia! come more alive than on Vancouver Island's West Coast. With five great sounds, sixteen major inlets, and an abundance of spectacular wildlife, the largest island on the west coast of North America is a cruising paradise. The Douglasses consider their voyages along this coast to be among their most satisfying adventures. In this guide they give small craft skippers the kind of local knowledge they need to circumnavigate the island and drop hook in an abundance of intimate coves.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #595162 in Books
• Published on: 1999-03-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 323 pages

About the Author
Authors Don Douglass and Reanne Hemingway-Douglass have logged more than 170,000 cruising miles over the past 35 years from 60°N to 63°S latitude. Since 1991, they have spent their summers cruising on their trawler, Baidarka, gathering data for new titles and updating their acclaimed Exploring series of nautical guidebooks. Together they have documented 6,000 anchor sites between San Diego and the Alaska Peninsula.
Don began exploring Alaskan waters as a youth living in Ketchikan. He has sailed the West Coast and the Inside Passage on everything from a 21-foot sailboat to a commercial fishing boat and a Coast Guard icebreaker. He holds a BSEE degree from California State University and a Masters in Business Economics from Claremont Graduate University. Don is an honorary member of the International Association of Cape Horners and, as the author of several mountain biking guidebooks and a father of the sport, he was elected to the Mountain Biking Hall of Fame.
Reanne, who holds a BA degree in French from Pomona College, attended Claremont Graduate University and the University of Grenoble, France. Sailor, writer, cyclist and language teacher, Reanne s articles have appeared in numerous outdoor magazines. Her classic, Cape Horn: One Man's Dream, One Woman's Nightmare has been published in French and Italian. Reanne led the first women s bicycling team to cross Tierra del Fuego at the tip of South America. In 2008, she finally signed the register atop Cape Horn Island during Don's second visit.

Customer Reviews

The Difinitive Cruising Guide for the Area
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!

boating BC
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!

Exploring the South Coast of B.C.
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!