[Paddlewise] Sea Kayaking - this guide book's accuracy?

Guide books are not always easy to write if they cover a large area, so one 
written covering the world could be considered to be the most difficult, 
especially if you haven't been to the places you write about, which is the 
impression one gets with the book below.

With those comments in mind, has anyone read "Sea Kayaking" by Jonathon 
Hanson? Written for "Outside - Adventure Travel". The question is, how much 
can be relied on to be correct? When picking up a book, technical or 
travel, the first thing I do is go to the bits I know something about (if 
there is something I might know) and if those bits appear correct, there's 
a possiblilty that most of the rest of it will be correct. In the case of 
the book mentioned, large parts of the section on New Zealand are incorrect 
or misleading - "...by ferry from Auckland on the North Island [to 
Picton].." (there never has been one from Auckland) "... the isthmus town 
of Portage .....start in Portage..." (firstly it isn't a town, there's a 
pub there, that's all, it is about 2 km from the other Sound and if you are 
to do the tour suggested, you would start in a totally different town and 
maybe get there if you wanted to divert there but sensibly you'd finish the 
suggested trip somewhere else and not go near Portage!!!) "...Milford 
Sound, heart of Fiordland National Park..." (it's on the norther boundary, 
not in the middle) "...and the frequency of sand beaches..." (of the 
hundreds of beaches, I can think of 4 or 5 with sand, all the rest are 
gravel at best or stones)... and so on....

The suggested rental outfitter for Scotland is one in Maine!! is this 
correct? With a website that doesn't exist yet (under construction - no 
data). Aren't there any locals?

So that's New Zealand (and Scotland), how accurate are the rest of the 
descriptions for the other destinations?

Alex
.
.
Alex (Sandy) Ferguson
Chemistry Department
University of Canterbury
New Zealand

***************************************************************************
PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List - Any opinions or suggestions expressed
here are solely those of the writer(s). You must assume the entire
responsibility for reliance upon them. All postings copyright the author.
Submissions:     PaddleWise_at_PaddleWise.net
Subscriptions:   PaddleWise-request_at_PaddleWise.net
Website:         http://www.paddlewise.net/
***************************************************************************