Today I stumbled on a pretty good freebie on the web - something you can download as a pdf file and read at your leisure or take along when cruising and read on your laptop or ebook reader. It's called "A Cruising Handbook: Everything we learned from A to Z while cruising on Callipygia" and can be found here. It was written by a couple in their 60s who went cruising for almost 5 years in their 37-foot sailboat, visiting 18 different countries and covering thousands of sea miles. The book is well organized and chock-full of useful information (and good opinion based on their experience), mostly focusing on practical issues of cruising, including boat gear, safety issues, emergency preparedness, navigation, weather, and lots of how-to's. And did I mention it's free? And here's a list of some other good sailing books for those about to go cruising.