15 January, 2020 Big city, big houses, big boats

30 SM; 4.8 engine miles

Relaxing morning, coffee, reading and study.  No rush, very nice anchorage with minimal wake.  Almost pancake flat early.  We are traveling the protected waterway, no big ocean, no isolation, no real worries about boat systems.  We raised anchor @1015 and entered the GICW for a short mileage trip south.  The majority of the trip in the narrow confines of the waterway with mega homes, mega condos and mega high rises.  Plenty of boat traffic, in fact it was pretty busy today and as expected, pretty rude pleasure boat operators who are not concerned about their wake.  I suspect it remains this way until...well until.

Big house--nice location

Big boats

We planned our nightly anchor at a location recommended by active captain.  Upon arrival it was full of sailboats, which is ok, but many appear derelict and not occupied or maintained.  We are planning on meeting  friends from our home cowboy church, who winter at treasure island.   We picked this spot because there is a McDonald’s dinghy dock near and a Publix grocery store in the same parking lot.  It was going to be a 1/2 mile dinghy paddle from the planned anchorage.   With the anchorage full we would have had to anchor even further away.  So, we eased around the corner from the planned anchorage to the little cove with the dinghy dock and it looked big enough and we sounded the bottom with the depth finder and went in a circle a couple of times. We had enough water at low tide and would not interfere with the near by marina boats or the free dinghy dock so we dropped the hook.  All secured @ 1450 in 7.6 feet of water.  (map) SST 76 degrees.  Close to a road bridge, but a pretty sweet spot.  Town of Maderia Beach  Will meet our friends tomorrow at McDonalds.  Sweet.

Nice anchorage; McDs to the upper right

1315.4 Hobbs; 1485 Sm elapsed