The Cruising Guide New Caledonia Book versus the Nautical Guide to New CaledoniaThis is going to take awhile to download because I want to show you with photos the difference between the old 1996 cruising guide book and what the 2008 cruising guide offers. So while the images are downloading let's first look at some statistics.
The basic idea of a chart or a cruising guide is to help you know as much as possible about an anchorage and the passages to it before you actually head off to go there with your boat and loved ones. It's a question of security as well as pleasure and confidence when going somewhere you've never been before. Let's take an actual example from an anchorage in Isle of Pines - a group of islands south of Grande Terre and a favorite cruising area for visiting yachts. I've selected Ilot Brosse, also known as Ilot Alcmene for the comparison. Here is what you see for Ilot Brosse on the official hydrographic map:
And here is what you see in the Cruising Guide to New Caledonia book:
Note the X marks the spot on the lower left corner of this image - this is where the book says the anchorage is located according to their GPS position. The location the book gives is actually on a coral reef. The real anchorage is roughly where I have put a red circle and the entrance to the anchorage is where I have put a small red x. Now let's compare this to what we have on the Nautical Guide to New Caledonia.
Here is what you see on our new Nautical Guide to New Caledonia. This is a survey quality aerial photograph of the island. This image is nowhere near the quality of the image on the CD. The image presented on this web page is only 700 pixels wide - the one on the CD is 2048 pixels wide and you can see every coral head with amazing clarity. Compare this image with the ones above and you will immediately appreciate the advantages of seeing reality over a sketch. But that's not all you get on the CD. If you put your cursor over the little sailboat icon you get directions on approach to the island like this:
You have a GPS route number - and you can use this to open a GPS program that will upload the GPS coordinates directly to your Garmen or Magellan or Simpson Laurance GPS unit or you can save the route in a number of other formats for use by whatever program you now use to send GPS coordinates and routes to your GPS. Or you can simply enter the GPS coordinates manually if you don't have a PC-GPS connection. The sailing directions give you exact instructions for sailing to Ilot Brosse from Kuto anchorage in Isle of Pines. Now that you know how to get there and how to enter the anchorage lagoons, put your cursor over the yellow anchor on the right to find out about the eastern most anchorage.
An image of that anchorage pops up instantly along with an ACCURATE GPS position, the type of bottom and related anchoring conditions, depth of the anchorage, protection from various winds, etc. There are three anchorages offered here and this is the middle one - very protected and beautiful:
And this is the third anchorage, the most westerly one with GPS points, depths and anchoring conditions.
Is that it? No way. Click on the "i " icon and this is what you see:
Now you know that if you want to listen to the weather forecast on VHF the correct channel for this area is Channel 25, that the mobile phone works well here and that there is TV (also you can see the evening weather broadcast). Notice the menu bar with information on the beaches and the reefs. Put your cursor over the NW beach and you see this photo:
Here we have information about the tours from the local hotels to this island and their picnic facilities. Now have a look at the NE beach - makes you dream about going there, right?
There's more photos of the beaches and the reefs but you get the idea. Of course, you have to get to the anchorage in the first place. In the book you have no anchorage index so it is a page flip job to try and find first the section on the Isle of Pines and then the anchorage itself. On the guide you start with a satellite image of all of New Caledonia (actually you can be anywhere in New Caledonia on the guide and get to any anchorage anywhere in two clicks). You point to the various areas of the islands to find out what's where. If you point to the Isle of Pines you see this:
Click on the Isle of Pines and you zoom in to see this:
This level gives the various routes to go to and from the Isle of Pines, you'll get exact distances and GPS points for each route so you can plan your cruise there and back. There is also helpful information on wind directions and currents. If you wanted now to look at the next satellite image to the west or north just click on the edge of the image and you'll jump to the next photo-chart. But for now, we'll click on the Isle of Pines to zoom in even closer for a detailed look at routes in and around Isle of Pines.
From here you can zoom in again to the image I showed you above on how to get to Ilot Brosse or you can click on the yellow anchorage at Ilot Brosse or any of the other anchorages on Isle of Pines to instantly zoom in and see them in full detail. Ease of Access to highly accurate cruising and anchoring informationThis gives you an idea of what's on the guide that you will not find in the outdated book or anywhere else and the ease of accessing that information. The book has no information at all about how to get your boat from one anchorage to another, no suggested routes, and no easy way to find an anchorage you are interested in. I didn't mention that in addition to the very user-friendly way of simply clicking on the photo-chart to zoom into an anchorage, you could also have clicked on the binocular icon to see a quick listing of every anchorage and route map in New Caledonia. So if someone says you should check out Ilot Brosse you would Just click on the binoculars, then on the name Brosse and pop - you are there seeing it from a bird's eye view in living color. And that's just ONE of 149 anchorages on the Guide, many of the others have lots more photos and detailed information including virtual reality sphere images of New Caledonia's Lagoon like these. It's your vacation, your boat, your friends and family, if you want the best information for your security and safety when cruising in New Caledonia throw out your outdated book and(or) pirated copies of the CD made from the book and
Expect a delivery time by priority air mail of three to six weeks depending on where you are ordering from. We post the guides the same day we get the order but the postal service has become unbelievably slow to deliver anything these days. The Nautical Rocket Guides to both Vanuatu and New Caledonia are also available at the following locations: Noumea Yacht Services in Noumea, New Caledonia, Yachting World's Cyber Connect Cafe in Port Vila, Vanuatu South Sea Shipping in Port Vila, Vanuatu Boat Books in New Zealand TransPacific in New Zealand 121 Beaumont Street, Westhaven, Auckland, New Zealand
ActivationThe guide needs to be activated on your computer - for details on activation click here
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