My Favorite Resource: Coast Pilot

Charts are essential, but my favorite navigation resource is the Coast Pilot.

Its title sounds like a for-profit book that should appear on the USCG’s best seller list (if such a list existed), but in fact it is published by the NOAA’s Office of Coast Survey, and can be accessed entirely for free online (you can order printed copies, but those will cost ya).

You can think of the Coast Pilot as a collection of directions from folks who’ve lived in the various regions all their lives.

If you remember life before Google Maps, directions would often be something like, “Go to the second traffic light, make a sharp right, go about 1/2 a mile (be careful there’s a bad pothole about 250′ after the turn), then you’ll pass a hot dog stand. Two streets after that stand, you’ll see a green house, turn left there…”

Think of the Coast Pilot as this, but for water. It’s just a wonderful narration of local areas, and it shares tribal knowledge that one simply cannot get from the brevity of a chart.

If you haven’t, check it out: Coast Pilot. Find your region, and read that section; I’ll bet you’ll be surprised how the advice and descriptions are spot-on!