11. Russell Pass Middle Anchorage
11. Russell Pass Middle Anchorage
Lat/Lon: near 25 50.303 North/081 26.317 West
Location: found on the waters of Russell Pass just short of the large, shallow cove cutting into the southeasterly banks
Minimum Depth: 7-feet
Swing Room: sufficient swinging room for vessels as large as 50 feet
Foul Weather Shelter: excellent, great foul weather hidey hole
Rating: 
Click on Chartlet Below to Open a Chart View Window,
Centered on the Location of This Anchorage:
Comments from Cruisers (2)
3-19-2010. This is the second time we have anchored just a tad south of the anchorage shown on the chart above [follow link below to check out the chartlet Captain Jean is referring to]. It is well protected with good depths. We aren’t going anywhere in the dinghy, just kicking back and catching up on email etc.
Jean Thomason (DOVEKIE)
Next stop for three days was Russell Pass outside Everglades City. A wonderful anchorage.
We dinghied four miles into Everglades City . They really shouldn’t’t call it a ‘city’. Got bait there (frozen shrimp – hope the catfish don’t like it), but couldn’t get a Sunday paper. The reason for the trip to Everglades City was to lunch at the Rod and Gun Club – a very “old Florida” experience. It opened in the late 1800s and was one of the first winter destinations for the well-heeled from up north.
As the name implies, they came to hunt and fish, and enjoy the sunshine. The walls of the place are crowded with the heads, bodies, and skins of their trophies as well as newspaper articles about the place through the years.
It’s been quite the draw with presidents Truman, Roosevelt, and Cleveland visiting there as well as Sally Field and Mick Jagger (now there’s an unlikely collection). We dined on the large veranda and had OK food and delicious Mango Iced Tea. I’d put this on the ‘must see’ list for cruisers. Our chief photographer, Rick, sent us a lot of these photos he took of our dingy ride and lunch at Everglades City.
Now, Everglades City is not just known for the Ron and Gun Club. It is air boat ride capital of the Everglades. So, for $37 per person, one can ride on one of those propeller-driven, water top skimming, turn-on-a-dime, flat-bottomed boats. Really, they told us that they only did the mangroves; and, WE DID MANGROVES!! So, what fun would that be? We decided on a nice lunch amongst the dead carcases instead.
Norm Naughton
Aboard M/V Tide Hiker