I don’t think any body of water in the Florida Keys has garnered more postings here on the Cruiser’s Net than Angelfish Creek. Some, like Captain Holm below, have no problem, while others have had an unfortunate encounter with an “underwater rock.”

Subject: Angelfish Creek
Cruising News: We went out through Angelfish Creek 2 days ago, with some trepidation after all the negative reports and our C-Map based plotter showing 3 ft depths.
Two hours after HW on the ocean side, our lowest depths were over 8 ft on the inside and over 7 feet on the ocean side. It is wide, well marked and straightforward.
Doug Holm
Acme Cat – Nonsuch33 with 5.5 ft draft

We have been through Card Sound/Angelfish Creek 2 times now and the depth is great. We draw 5 ft. and have not had any problems. We also were concerned about the depth and acquired local knowledge and were told that there was not a problem for our draft. On Christmas Eve 2009, we set out with 20 knot headwinds and stayed in the middle of the channel and followed a 120 foot Lazarra out through the channel an hour before high tide and found 7 ft. where the chart and chartplotter showed only 4 ft. We went to Carysfort Reef and tied off to a mooring ball and had a rough 20-25 knot East winds until 7 a.m. when they became southeast to east at 10-15 knots. We were prepared to make our crossing to the Bahamas from there, but elected not to go from there on Christmas Day, due to the 5 foot seas. We returned to Angelfish Creek and anchored in 10 ft of water and are staged for the next weather window to make our crossing to Gun Caye. The current in Angelfish has not been in issue in the two days that we have been here. We did however observe numerous crab trap floats from the exit to Angelfish to the Atlanti Shelf. Our concern leaving at Midnight was that we wouuld foul our prop and if we decide to leave from the mouth Angelfish at midnight, then it will be necessary to post a crew with a spotlight at the bow for approximately 4 miles to the shelf. The advantage of going to Carysfort Reef (7 miles south of Angelfish Creek is that there are free moorings for the night and behind a reef for protection and has 2-4 feet below the surface.
Bill & JoAnne

Another helpful site for weather reports of wind is: http://www.windfinder.com
Bill & JoAnne