[ActiveCaptain]

And here are a small sampling of emails we receive every day.

Hmmm...every day? So these aren't picked from your batch of compliments you've received over multiple years?

Let's take a look at a couple of them...

"We could sum up Dozier's Waterway Guide: The Cruising Authority: Southern 2006 as...

2006? You just got this within the last few days? Seems like this one is 4 years old.

"There is no more comprehensive set of guides on the Great Loop than Waterway Guides. The four regional guides are the only set of guidebooks that cover the entire Great Loop. The compendium of information is exhaustive, the aerial photography is stunning and the organization makes the guides easy to use...there is probably no other publication that covers so much for so little."

-Ron and Eva Stob, America's Great Loop Cruisers' Association

That's funny, the Stob's sold AGLCA in 2007. They're just getting around to telling how wonderful Waterway Guide is today?



Those were the easy ones. For the others, I tried to look for a few of the quotes - couldn't find a single one except on the Waterway Guide web site. At least when I made a quote, I gave a specific reference. And that reference was published today.

The truth is that guidebooks had their place. I spent hundreds of dollars on guidebooks in my personal cruising for use while on my boat. But somewhere around 2008/2009 they started to become obsolete. By 2010, they just aren't needed any longer, hence the title of the thread, "There's no reason to buy another guidebook..."

Chuck's quotes sort of prove this point. It seems like a bulk of the quotes are from 3+ years ago - let's call that the heyday of cruising guidebooks.

Today we're in the downturn of cruising guidebooks as they dwindle down and become something that we used to use while cruising. The clock is ticking as the various publishers start to fall off one-by-one (no matter how many personal emails are published).