Looking for a good online website that will provide you with up-to-date information on what’s going on along the Intra-Coastal Waterway (ICW)? Here’s a partial listing of links to websites that you can surf for up-to-date information on where you’ll be going tomorrow if you’re transiting the popular waterway, from misplaced buoys to newly silted areas:
WATERWAY GUIDES, PRINT AND ONLINE:
ActiveCaptain website. Jeffrey and Karen Siegel’s online The Interactive Cruising Guidebook offers offer digital charts, maps, satellite photos, and hybrids of whatever area you’re cruising and provides detailed information about navaids, markers, bridges, etc. A cellphone or tablet app, The Active Captain Companion, offers instant updates and boaters’ comments and reviews of everthing on the water and on nearby shores.
CruiseGuide for the Intracoastal Waterway and AnchorGuide for the Intracoastal Waterway, by Mark and Diana Doyle. The Doyles have converted their well-known guidebook-publishing house to a non-profit organization, so their work—available online and in print and e-books—is stunningly low-priced. Volumes contain mile-by-mile charts, photos, and audio summaries, plus up-to-date postings on changes in ICW conditions. Includes the latest scoop on 18 likely ICW trouble-spots and a “Rolling Header” that you can scroll along as you transit the waterway.
The Intracoastal Waterway Chartbook, Norfolk to Miami, 6th Edition, edited by John and Leslie Kettlewell. International Marine Division of McGraw-Hill. Reproduces portions of nautical charts and lists ports, marinas, anchorages, fuel docks, and restaurants along the way. You can check off each marker as you pass it. The 283-page spiral-bound volume contains detailed sections of nautical charts on every part of the ICW, including inlets and major side-channels, alternate routes, bridges and locks, ancorages, marinas and distance tables. In e-book form as well.
Dozier’s Waterway Guide, Atlantic ICW 2015. Spiral-bound printed edition contains basic information for ICW travelers and pages containing mini-charts and lists of marinas, bridges, anchorages, and shopping for each major segment. E-books are coming.
Skipper Bob’s Cruising Guides A series of e-books laid out in an easy-to-use, mile-by-mile format. Separate guide for anchorage, free docks, bridge and lock restrictions, waterway problem areas, marina and fuel prices, and caution areas.
Salty Southeast Cruisers’ Net . A longtime classic for ICW users. Announcements, news items and boaters’ postings about portions of the waterway, shore points, etc., all along the way, including items from the Coast Guard’s Local Notice to Mariners.
East Coast Alert BoatU.S.’s longtime blogger and magazine writer Tom Neale and his wife, Mel, offer a biweekly online compilation of Coast Guard and Army Corps of Engineers notices about specific sections of water along the ICW. Subscribe free of charge.
Blue Seas AICW guide lists schedules, phone numbers, etc., for bridges and locks on the ICW, along with restrictions relating to use or repairs.