Capt. Dan's Channel Islands Cruising Guide

Point and Click on your Channel Islands National Park destination island

That's about all you have to do to find our data: Point and click on the island you want to visit and you'll go to a more detailed graphic showing the anchorages in Channel Islands National Park.

Pick an anchorage on the new chart, then point and click again and you'll find all of our cruising information for that anchorage.

How to Use Our Guide

This guide is intended as a supplement to the official information available - Coast Pilot, NOAA charts {see bottom for links} - and as an adjunct to Brian Fagan's excellent cruising guides. The most useful for us being Cruising Guide to Southern California's Offshore Islands

So if Brian has done such a great job, why do we bother with this?

Brian's work has the advantages of being a book. It's easily transported - we always have one on the boat - easy to read and chock full of great information.

The drawback is it's a book. Hard to get updates, expensive to include new graphics and unable to provide linking data. So we've taken it on ourselves to provide the material between printings of Brian's books.

We're not doing this alone and when you've been to an anchorage, we'd like you to share any new information and your digital pictures. And we haven't been in every anchorage yet, so if you go to one we haven't covered, we'd like your description.

Weather

The weather is usually benign here - most forecasts call for 10-15 knots and seas less than 5 feet. However, Santa Ana winds and occasional storms can give us winds of 50+ knots and huge swells with conflicting wind waves.

Take a look ----

Click here for the links I trust. SoCal Marine Weather Links

"Windy Lane" is just that - most summer days start with calm winds, but when you get to the coastwise traffic lanes or just beyond, you'll frequently experience winds in the 25 - 30 knot regime. In addition to your other weather checks, go to Sailflow to find out what's cooking in Windy Lane.

Other Resources

Even when we complete this guide, it will be important to refer to some of other authorities ...
Island Weather
SoCal Marine Weather Links
Coast Pilot (West Coast)
Local Notices to Mariners
Updates to Coast Pilot
Fagan and other sailing books from Amazon

Note that a brand new edition of the Pacific Coast Pilot was published in February 07. It would be a good idea to check out the publication before your next cruise. Finally, there is important information about restricted activities and areas of the islands that you can only find on the NPS pages. Take a quick look at Channel Islands Boating and Marine Reserve information and restrictions. .

Additionally, you should ensure that your charts are current, which you can do by checking the dates of the charts you use (18700 to 18729 cover the Channel Islands) at Current Chart List

If you have the latest chart, but not the latest update, go to Local Notices to Mariners.

Anchorage Information Needed

We've made great progress in 2007, thanks mostly to the ardent sailors who belong to Sailtime Channel Islands and the the Sailing Yacht Sancerre's Boatswain Dennis Dreith.
As of Oct. 2007, we still lack pictures and descriptions of
- Valley Anchorage
- Blue Banks
- Potato Harbor
- Chinese Harbor
- Painted Cave
- Ford Point (Santa Rosa)
- Tyler Bight (San Miguel)
- Cat Rock (Anacapa)

If you've been in any of these anchorages and would like to submit your pictures and commentary, we'd sure like to include your work. Our e-mail link is at the bottom. Give us a shout.