New Intracoastal Waterway Cruising Guide
2015 ICW Cruising Guide: A guide to navigating the Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway with charts of over 140 hazard areas and their safe navigation along … trips from New York to Key West
by Bob and Ann Sherer
“Cruising the Intracoastal Waterway (ICW) is an experience of a lifetime. It’s challenging, it’s exciting, it’ll test your mettle and you’ll see new things and meet new people. You will experience at least one heart stopping moment a day! You will get more opportunities for such “excitement” spending nine months a year on a boat, especially cruising the shallows of the ICW. However, there are many things to consider to get ready and once on the way, there are over 140 hazards that you ought to know about that we encountered on our Spring of 2015 trip north. This book contains charts of the hazards and how to navigate them safely along with things you may not have thought of like how to get your house ready for a nine month absence or for that matter how to get yourself ready!.. “ Bob Sherer
“Cruisers Helping Cruisers” is the motto and foundational truth that led to the creation of the Salty Southeast Cruisers’ Net web site. Through our many years of meeting fellow cruisers, we have come to understand the fraternal order of this unique population of captains, skippers, first mates, and crew. And when talking to each other, one thing always resonates, you can never have too much information !!
Recently we had the opportunity to meet a fellow cruiser and his lovely wife, who have gone to significant measure to help his fellow boaters with safe and comfortable use of the Atlantic ICW. Their names are Bob and Ann Sherer. They have been active contributors to the web sites that help our fellow skippers navigate safely and now they have published a book covering more than 140 AICW problem stretches. We at “The Salty Southeast Cruisers’ Net”
want to help Bob and Ann get this most useful information out to the cruising community who may be using the all or part of the AICW during their boating activities.
Bob and Ann have documented their travels up and down the AICW in detail and it is now available from Amazon in print or digital. The guide is not a complete guide to all anchorages and marinas, but is an excellent accounting of every hazardous area they have encountered and did encounter during their Spring 2015 return north. Concerning the electronic versions, Bob states that due to all the full color content he recommends the “ebook” only be viewed on a full color device like the “iPad” or equivalent. The Kindle does not do the charts justice although the text is fine, according to Bob. The download is 26.5Mb.
The print version has a soft cover to help keep cost down. Each hazardous area has one full page and some area are accompanied with Corps of Engineers surveys in full color; where surveys do not exist Bob has included satellite maps of the area to help determine the location of he deep water.
The team here at “The Salty Southeast Cruisers’ Net” highly recommends getting either the electronic or print version of Bob and Ann’s contribution to “Cruisers Helping Cruisers” before your trip south this Fall.
CLICK HERE for the Amazon listing: Paperback, $29.95 and Kindle, $4.95
Comments from Cruisers (2)
North Carolina takes care of their part of the ICW with frequent dredging. Florida does the same but only for the ICW south of St Augustine, everywhere else the ICW is seldom dredged. Georgia and South Carolina haven’t dredged in years showing shameful stewardship of the ICW passing through their states.
Even so there are some areas where there is a deep water passage at low tide if you know the path. One example is Fields Cut in South Carolina just before Savannah River where there is 8.4 ft MLW all the way but if you split the buoys you would have run aground until 2 years ago when the Coast Guard finally provided a new red buoy way over on the green side at the northern entrance. Those that knew used to hug the green side, far outside the channel for 10 ft MLW, now it’s marked by a red buoy which appears off station since it’s so far to the green side but you must honor it or run aground. Strangely, the Coast Guard did not put a green buoy at the southern exit where you must hug the red side for deep water, maybe next year. The deep water route through here has not changed in five years.
Likewise at the shallows just south of Fernandina, there is a 8 ft MLW path but you would never know it looking at the chart or following the buoys. The 8 ft MLW route has been constant for the last five years but never marked by the Coast Guard. “Helpfully”, on the most recent charts the entire area of the shallows was marked as “Shoaling to 3 ft”. It would have been more helpful to add buoys to direct boaters along the 8 ft MLW path which is still there.
There are many more examples of deep water paths that have not changed in the last five years where if you follow the buoys, you will run into trouble. It’s also true that some shallows have been dredged and are no longer a problem, mostly in North Carolina. As of a few weeks ago, South Carolina committed to dredging the Isle of Palms shallows just north of the Ben Sawyer Bridge starting in October, a first for SC!! Way to go! Unfortunately, all the other famous shallows will go untouched (Hell Gate, Mud River, Ashepoo, McClellanville, Dawho River, etc.) Even through these tight spots, there are ways to find the best path although it may only be 4.5 to 5.5 ft MLW but much shallower outside that narrow route. In fact, of all the shallows on the ICW, the only one being addressed (so far) for the fall migration is the Isle of Palms dredging. The vast majority of issues are not addressed with either buoy repositioning or dredging.
By all means, do not rely on just a printed copy of what worked in the spring of 2015, double check other sources but it’s helpful to have a chart of the problem areas in front of you arranged in a north to south sequence so you don’t miss any. In the vast majority of cases (but not all!), the safe routes remain the same from year to year as in the two examples at the top. As we all know, you can never just rely on one source for navigation, use all inputs and decide on the best route for your boat and crew.
I admire anyone that writes a book and I am sure there is a lot of helpful information in this one. One would have to questions putting all of the shoaling problems into print. Many of these issues have been addressed by the time a book comes to market. The use of Cruisersnet , ActiveCaptain and Tow Boat US/Seatow allow for daily and weekly updates by boaters on the water. Therefore, I would not rely on just print for these problem spots.