“The Atlantic Cruising Club has just published the seventh edition of its extensive Guides to Marinas, which will certainly become the bible for … cruisers. Devoid of [marina] advertising and thus any possibility of the guide’s judgment being tainted by financial interests, the … book includes a searchable CD (for PCs only).

“Each marina is given a full page, with ratings on everything from the number of TraveLifts to local scenery and a section that has information and phone numbers on any services or facilities a cruising yacht and her crew might need. Every marina in the book has a photograph, with many more on the CD. Nearly as indispensable as the boat itself, the entire series of ACC cruising guides is exemplary for completeness and objectivity.”

“After hurricane-delayed research, a new guidebook for marinas along Florida's East Coast is now available.

“Because PS gets calls from readers asking about chart books and guides all the time, we wanted to mention an addition to the Atlantic Cruising Club's set of marina guides, this one for Florida's East Coast. Delayed for [6 months] by the hurricanes Charley, Frances, and Jeanne (which rearranged a lot of docks), the new book required the ACC staff to revisit 95% of the 226 marinas excellently detailed in the book. (The ACC guides, four on the East Coast, one for the Pacific Northwest, include facilities that have transient docks for boats of 30' or longer.)  The ACC guides accept no [marina] advertising and come with CDs that include color photos. The guides currently available from ACC are for New England, Long Island Sound, the Pacific Northwest [soon], the Chesapeake Bay [soon], and the new one for Florida's East Coast.”

“Best New Books: The hefty seventh edition of Atlantic Cruising Club’s Guides to … Marinas should make heading ashore much less of a crapshoot. No fewer than 230 marinas [in each volume] are rated with respect to their onsite marina facilities (recreation, lodging and so on), boatyard services and scenic beauty. In addition to critical evaluations, each marina’s write-up includes information such as its number of slips, power options, rates, geographic coordinates, pet policy and handicap access – in short, everything anyone could possibly want to know. In an effort to ensure the objectivity of their ratings, reviewers paid for their own services and did not disclose the nature of their visits until after they made their assessments. (Not every marina earns terrific marks, either.) The book comes with a CD-ROM containing the same information (plus 1600 [-2500] photos) and a versatile search function.”

“Atlantic Cruising Club's Guide to Florida's East Coast Marinas could well have been titled Everything You Wanted to Know About Florida's East Coast Marinas, but Were Afraid to Ask.   The extensively-researched marina reports lay out the navigation data, facilities info . . . and more in an easy-to-read, one-page-per-marina format.  The same comprehensive data is on the accompanying easy-to-use CD-ROM that features more than 100 search fields [and 2000 photos] for very concise results.”

“The comprehensive Guide [to Florida’s East Coast Marinas] was co-written by [Bridget Balthrop] Morton and Elizabeth Adams Smith. It surveys 226 marinas between Fernandina Beach and Key West and offers information about every facility, from navigational coordinates and marina operations to listings for nearby groceries and restaurants. Morton particularly enjoyed poking around old Florida towns and chic urban areas as she visited marinas along the East Coast and the St. John's River. [She noted that] ‘Jerawyn Publishing takes no marina advertising for its guides, so every book represents the opinions of the authors. One or both of us visited each marina we wrote about [usually several times], and we completed a thorough report on each one, trying to include as many areas of interest to boaters as we could’.”