Edmund, Today, the best tools for cruising the US East Coast are apps (iPad, Android) called Aqua Maps and Navionics. There is a lot of functional overlap, but Navionics has a feature called "Sonar Charts" that can be helpful in shallow water, like the area of Mt. Pleasant north of Charleston. Aqua Maps is my go-to app, and Navionics is my backup. Aqua Maps has an add-on called "Master." It overlays USCOE soundings along the ICW, and is extremely helpful in some areas, like the St. John River crossing and Amelia Island shallows. Neither of the apps is perfect, but both are helpful. 7' would have been a huge issue a year ago, but several of the worst places have been recently dredged (McClellanville, Hell Gate, Jekyll Creek). But, there are still MANY trouble spots from NC all the way to South Florida, and with 7' draft, you will definitely have to play the tides. Watch out for Celestial low tides that are lower than MLLW. Whether we like it or not, by far the most current and accurate information on the A-ICW can be found on Facebook, in a group called "ICW Cruising Guide," by Bob Scherer (Bob423 on ActiveCaptain). You WILL want that information. Yes, Facebook sucks. The other place to look is at the Sail Magazine website. Tom Hale published ICW status there, and it is free and accurate. Your projected 70 miles per day may be optimistic if you plan to run offshore. From the Duplin River anchorage at Sapelo Island, it's 110 StM to Sisters Creek at the St. Johns River by ICW, and it's 90 StM going outside at Doboy Sound and coming in the St. John's Inlet. You can come in and depart via St. Sim0n's Sound, but there is a cargo ship on its side there and a patrolled safety zone that you'll have to transit. The problem is, you have to run 10 StM offshore to avoid near shore shoals. So allow for that when you plan your daily transits. In January, you will have 11 hours of daylight, and maybe another hour of twilight. So, not much leeway for early departure and late arrivals. Jim Peg and Jim Healy, living aboard Sanctuary http://gilwellbear.wordpress.com <http://gilwellbear.wordpress.com/> Monk 36 Hull #132 MMSI #367042570 AGLCA #3767 MTOA #3436