In this Imray podcast together with The Royal Cruising Club Pilotage Foundation, Jo Winter talks with Marine Podcaster Ceri Hurford-Jones about her favourite area, together with some words of advice for both the new and returning cruiser.
The South China Sea pilot books cover Singapore to Hong Kong via the Gulf of Thailand, Malaysia, Brunei, the Philippines and Taiwan.
Jo first visited Southeast Asia in 1976 as an impoverished backpacker just two years after the end of the Vietnam War, She found then, as now, the people friendly, helpful but undemanding, often reserved or shy, but always responding to smiles.
Her love and fascination for southeast Asia, its culture and its people have remained with her ever since. Once Jo and her husband returned to the South China Sea in 2007 their planned (repeat) circumnavigation has been put on hold as they have spent longer and longer exploring the fabulous cruising grounds of South East Asia, and enjoying the company of the resourceful, friendly people who live here.
Jo hopes that her Cruising Guide will encourage many more people to head east on their boats and experience, as she has, one of the most diverse, beautiful, unspoiled and undiscovered sailing areas in the world.