New
AcquisitionsStreet’s Cruising Guide to the Caribbean; Donald M.
Street jnr.; Authors' Guild Backinprint.Com Editions, 2001; -
Puerto Rico, the Spanish, U.S. and British Virgin Islands; 0-595-17351-9;
CA 15913 -
Anguilla to Dominica; 0-595-17357-8; CA 15912 -
Martinique to Trinidad; 0-595-17356-X; CA 15911
Don Street’s reputation is such that I doubt if I can add anything to what has already been said about the author. He wrote his first guide in 1964 and has been adding to and updating them ever since. These are interesting guides but not for those that are looking for the objective, formality of an Admiralty publication or the high production qualities of the commercial guides. These are a sailor’s guide to the Caribbean.
The three volumes cover all of the Lesser Antilles and they are ordered North-South. Each of the guides has a similar format starting with introductory sections that provide a list of charts and a prologue which gives information on radio communications, weather reports, what to wear along with practical advice covering an eclectic list including dinghies, security, fish poisoning, rental cars and tides.
Then we get into the heart of the guides, the sailing directions. These are usually split into two sections, one covering passages between destinations and the other giving more detailed information about the destinations themselves. This destination information is an idiosyncratic list of the author’s knowledge and experience. Cutting to the chase, these guides are as comprehensive a set as you will find but that is to ignore the essence of Street’s individual style.
Don sails his way around the Caribbean, his yachts are engineless, and the guides reflect this. They are written in a style that is rare in these days of GPS and reliable engines. You get to your destination for the night by following a bearing, having tacked across a bay, eyeballed your way through the final approach and then putting your hook down in a little known anchorage. You are given Don’s advice on the nature of the locals and the surrounds and often his views on how things have changed over the years, sometimes for the good, other times for the bad. He does not pull his punches, when he doesn’t like something he’ll tell you.
Looking at the places that I have visited in this guide his directions are accurate and easy to follow. The chartlets are little crowded by today’s standards but carry the necessary information to allow you to plan how you will sail your route. There is some out of date information, for instance, he talks of the lifting bridge on R. Salee in Guadaloupe, there are now two as we found to our cost. But these are small points, the nature of guides is that they are out of date as soon as they are written but the rocks don’t move and Don has found and recorded a fair few of them.
The initial look of the guides might put you off, they are reprints and updates of material that was initially published nearly forty years ago, but persevere and you will be rewarded by a sailor’s guide to the Caribbean. I used a rival guide for our trip and wish that I had had these on board to get me to the places that the others forgot to tell me about. - CRE
Page prepared 16 October 2001
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