Anchoring in Hawks Channel

We knew when we departed Key West our options were largely limited to anchoring out each night. If your desire is to marina hop, unless your speed is faster than ours, it is hard to find options that work with our draft and an easy days' range. There are some options but anchoring can be a lot of fun and is certainly more cost effective.

We were again traveling with Risky Business and had picked out an anchorage in New Found Harbor . We decided on this spot because of numerous recommendations by others. The weather was fine for the most part. We had been having a series of cold fronts coming through with high winds but on our day of departure it had settled down a bit; sloppy initially but calming down as the day wore on. Knowing the wind direction is always the first step in picking a good anchorage and  settling to a good lee side that does not radically change on you in the middle of the night is important if you want a good night's sleep.

Our trip was only 45sm, not long or particularly challenging as we headed north into the wind. By early afternoon we had arrived and began the journey into the harbor, It took a bit longer than we expected because the depths were a bit thin and the course in was a bit of a trek, forming an inverted J. We averaged 7' of depth traveling in, so going slow as to not squat the stern was important. We settled behind the small island on the lee side in 6 ft and anchored in sand. If I were to do it again I would not go in as far and look to drop the hook a bit further north, where the flat side of the J forms.
The small island was well attended with numerous small runabouts that zoomed around making it a bit rough with wakes but settled down nicely at sundown. It was a tranquil and pretty setting. Clear water, a pretty blue green.

At anchor we keep track of our position using our PC based chart plotter, running MaxSea ,which has an anchor watch. We also have 2 Furuno Navnet units with chart plotters. The plotter draws a circumference around the center point of the anchor and will sound an alarm if we track out of it. Being as high tech, we set up a baby monitor at night so we can hear an alarm down below. We set the diameter of the anchor watch and will vary it depending on the conditions and the amount of chain we have out. As is our practice, we had 120' of chain out and snubbed the lines. What is interesting about the picture to the right is you can see clearly how we swung at anchor during the night. There is a tight little arc in red outlining our swing radius. We held very nicely and slept well.

Our next night's stop was on the eastern side of Rodriquez Key. We came in from the north and dropped anchor in 6-7 ft of water with a sandy bottom. It was a calm and quite peaceful night. You can see our swing is fairly small and a bit flat as opposed to the usual U shape. I included a screen capture of Active Captain.https://activecaptain.com/X.php We are big fans. This is an interactive web site with lots of good information including  navigational aids to give warning for problem areas as well as anchorages. You can see a small green flag in the picture to the left, which if you click on it, will give you anchorage information for this location. In this case I brought up the comments page.  This gives us real time, diverse opinions on an interactive site. They have recently added  functionality to allow people to upload routes they have taken so you can see how someone navigated a tricky area. Pretty cool! Our chart plotter software MaxSea includes the Active Captain data embedded in the software, so no need for a separate data source or active Internet connection which is not possible for the most part when running. http://www.maxsea.fr/timezero/Products/MaxSeaTimeZero/Explorer/tabid/115/language/en-US/Default.aspx In the past I would look up sources while on the Internet and then print or transcribe the info onto a notebook that I kept separately, using it in planning and a reference while traveling. Now it is all integrated into one stand alone computer based software solution.

Our next and final stop while traveling Hawks Channel was through the Florida Pass and into Biscayne Bay. It was at this point in mid afternoon that we left Ricky Business. They stayed in Hawks Channel onto Miami. They were provisioning and planning a run to the Bahamas. We have enjoyed our time together for almost 1000sm or so. It is fun to "buddy boat" sharing the waterway with another as you either run off shore or on the inside. Alice and Barry are good and knowledgeable boaters and friends. We hope to boat with them again.

Our path had us on a route back home to Kilmarnock VA. We had important family matters to attend to; our daughter Katie is getting married in May and our youngest son Johnny is graduating from college two weeks later. The Bahamas will wait until the fall.

This was our second time in the Biscayne Bay area and we enjoyed it as much as the first time. It is a popular spot with about 6-8 boats of different types anchored in the same area.
The red line is our actual route in and the blue line is the route I made before coming in as a planning method. I always like to have these spots researched and a route into and out of beforehand.
In all of these spots the waters were a beautiful blue green color and crystal clear with the bottom clearly visible. If it had been warmer I would have been tempted to go for a swim!