4th Edition. By Rod and Lucinda Heikell. A Review of this welcome update by Will Pedder
West Aegean Pilot
Rod & Lucinda Heikell
4th Edition, Imray, Laurie, Norie & Wilson, 2020
Rod and Lucinda Heikell are renowned for their pilot books on the Eastern Mediterranean. This update to their West Aegean pilot is a welcome continuation of their work.
Their Greek Waters Pilot is the parent volume, with its three children, for West and East Aegean, and the Ionian. They very usefully follow a similar format and layout, making it easy to switch between volumes.
The introduction provides excellent preparation for cruising the W Aegean. Then there is the Heikells’ normal wealth of useful pilotage detail, plus much on the background, history and legends which make this area so interesting for a cruiser. The Pilot is then divided into chapters whose coverage is shown clearly on the chart at the frontispiece; each is colour-coded with page-edge tabs for easy access. With the sequential layout of locations necessary for a printed book it can be a challenge to find the page for your next anchorage. For this the rigorous index is very handy.
On a point of detail, on some plans rectangles show where more detail is available – “see plan”. It would be helpful if the page number of that plan could be given.
Inevitably there is substantial overlap between this volume and its parent, the Greek Waters Pilot. I used the latter throughout Greece, and now realise I should have invested in the three children volumes instead, to gain maximum benefit from the depth of the Heikells’ experience.
Will Pedder
March 2020