Crossing the Big Bend: Anclote River to Carrabelle

What the sources say

• There is no inside route From Anclote River north there is no inside route until the east terminus of the second section of the waterway is reached at Carrabelle, about 140 miles to the north-northwest. At Mile 150.0 the dredged channel of the first section simply ends.
• The harbors the Coast Pilot names Boats sailing outside may find refuge during bad weather by entering the Withlacoochee River, about 75 miles north of Clearwater, Cedar Keys Harbor, about 95 miles north of Clearwater, the Steinhatchee River, the Crystal River, the Homosassa River or Horseshoe Cove.
• The shoal ground reaches a long way out Between Anclote Keys and Cedar Keys, 60 miles to the north, broken ground extends as much as 15 miles from shore, and there are many rocks and shoals in the deeper water. North of Cedar Keys the bottom is broken and irregular for about 10 miles from shore, with numerous coral heads and reefs.
• Fish havens and guano racks Numerous fish havens, some marked by private buoys, extend as much as 10 miles offshore. Bird guano racks on the outermost shoals between Tampa and Apalachee Bays have in places been destroyed, leaving broken piling; not all of the racks are charted.
• The tide at Cedar Key NOAA gives the Cedar Key gauge (8727520) a great diurnal range of 3.8 feet and a mean range of 2.83 feet.
• Why there is no mile strip here The two halves of the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway are measured from different zeros: the first section ends at Mile 150.0 counted from the Caloosahatchee River, the second begins at Mile 376.2E counted eastward from Harvey Lock in New Orleans. The Coast Pilot gives the distances to the refuge harbors from Clearwater, not from Anclote, so there is no single mileage to place them on.

Depth the waterway was built for