Best rout from lower FL west coast to the Pan Handle

[Don1500]

What is the best place to jump from the lower Fl ICW to the panhandle?

 

[Steve1.0]

If you're in the Bradenton area, maybe a jump from there to Tarpon Springs. then to Cedar key. Then a cut across to Apalachicola. (roughly 100km.)

I delivered a SeaRay 51 from Panama City to Canaveral via Ft. Meyers and Lake O. using a similar route, however with 25kt cruise I went from Apalachicola to Tarpon Springs in one hop.

 

[DCDC]

We have cruised this route several times. Slow trawler with 5’9” draft, prefer to anchor. Manatee River or Clearwater to/from Dog Island, an overnight trip for our speed. There are a few inlets further north that are appealing but generally too shallow, too tight and too intricate for us. These are popular with Loopers as their boats a typically smaller, shallower draft and they seem to minimize open water passages.

 

[rgano]

For your Camano, I would wander up the ditch to Anclote Key before departing around the NE corner of that island to enter open water. Tarpon Springs is handy if you need to await a weather window. From there, we sometimes ran to Cedar Key where we would anchor overnight before heading to Dog Island pass. Once through the pass at Dog, you can head up to Carrabelle if you want a marina mooring or simply loop around the west end to Dog to anchor in the small bay there before heading on west to Apalachicola. We have just as often bypassed Cedar Key because there is no welcome there for transient vessels larger than a bass boat - no marina and attitude. The anchorage off the town of Cedar Key is at the end of an eleven-mile long channel coming in from the south, and the northwest channel, though tempting for an exit is very shoal, and we spent a few hours aground there on our one and only attempt before working loose and heading back down the south channel. A friend has in calm weather simply anchored in the shallow water near Seahorse shoal for a few hours of sleep. Anclote to Cedar about 70 miles and Cedar to Dog about 110.