Passages South

Publisher: Cruising Guide Publications

Publication Date: 2006

Another of the excellent guides by this publisher is very good reading for anyone making long passages between Florida and South America.  The cover heading includes “The Gentleman’s Guide”, a  conscious reference to the Victorian adage that “gentlemen never sail to windward” As this very experienced cruising sailor explains in his foreword, in these parts a favourable wind can often man unfavourable weather.  The claim of the guide is that, if you follow his advice, his “sailing directions”, you will have a comfortable ride.  The book is “for the liveaboard long-term cruiser……… singlehanders who must reduce risk and sailors like me who don’t want their boats (or themselves) to get broken and……who easily - and sensibly – get scared of the sea” .

Even if you do not fall into the long term cruising category, there is much useful knowledge and wisdom here.  Mr van Sant has sailed some 70,000 miles in these waters under sail and engine and in a variety of craft.  The first third of the 300 odd pages is given over to general advice for the area: from culture to intruders; from communications to understanding the way in which the islands impact in a predictable way upon the forecast weather and so on.  The remaining two thirds dwell on the passages from the main island groups through the Bahamas, Turks & Caicos through Haiti and the Dominican Republic before jumping rather rapidly from Puerto Rico and  the locally named “Spanish Virgin Islands” to Bonaire and Venezuela.  This is, of course, deliberate and recognises the superb guides from the same publishing house by Chris Doyle which capture the intervening Leeward and Windward Isles.  These are essential if you want to take the slow route.

Not only is this a knowledgeable and interesting guide for the area, it is distinctly usable being robustly spiral-bound to allow pages to stay open where you want and with the rear cover folding into an extra flap as a book mark and additional protection. - MJD