Cruising Guides: Florida, ICW, Bahamas, and Chesapeake Bay for Boaters

I’m often asked why we created our own cruising guides. The idea didn’t start in an office—it started over painkillers at the Annapolis Boat Show, where a group of us on The Boat Galley team were swapping stories.

Some of us were about to head south on the ICW, and the conversation turned to how much time we spent every evening making lists—fuel stops, grocery stores, laundry, pumpouts, protected anchorages for the expected wind, and of course, bridges: exact names, fixed or opening, schedules, VHF channels. Every night, it was hours of flipping through pages, cross-checking different sources, and writing it all down.

Then someone joked, “Whoever leaves first should send their lists back to the rest of us.” We laughed—then a lightbulb went off. Why wasn’t there a cruising guide organized by what boaters actually need to find?

So we made one.

We started with the lists we were already making—what we always looked up, what was hard to find, what would make cruising easier. Over the next year, team member Larry Webber compiled the first ICW guide. The rest of us used it, suggested tweaks, contributed local knowledge, and made hundreds—maybe thousands—of phone calls to verify everything.

And the verdict? Larry’s guide gave us back our evenings. We didn’t have to make lists anymore—everything was already there.

Now, we’ve expanded to six cruising guides that together cover the entire East Coast of the U.S. and the Bahamas, from Mobile, AL, to the northern Chesapeake Bay. We offer both print and PDF versions (the PDF is available instantly, no shipping address required).

See how you can spend less time planning and more time enjoying the journey.