Dog Island holds a strategic position in the Florida Panhandle. It's sits hard by both the easerly genesis of the Northern Gulf ICW, and the charming village of Carrabelle, with its excellent marina facilities. It's a good thing that this body of land has excellent anchorages, one of which is described below!

We had Carrabelle as our home port for a year.  We frequented a cove on the inside of Dog Island called Ballast Cove.  The water is about 15 ft deep for a good way up to the beach.  We would dinghy to shore and walk across the spit of land to the ocean side and see crabs, dolphins, skates and find great shells.  I do not know of Rattlesnake Cove and am not on the boat right now to review charts.  We also anchored just behind St. George's eastern end – but watch for a long shallow point extending out.  The east end of St. George is a state park and pristine.  I caught some humongous blue crabs there.  The current through the cut between Dog and St. George is strong, so if your boat swings the other direction, make sure you put in your dinghy further up the shore before trying to fight the current…trust me, we were rowing and it was exhausting.  We gave up, went back to shore, walked the dinghy up and floating back to the mother ship.  Duh.  For hurricane protection during Dennis we went up the Apalachicola River to Saul's Creek (a total of about 10 miles) with all of the shrimp boats, and threw out three anchors and tied to four trees.  We held fine and had no issues.
Fair Winds,
Connie C. Rosenthal

Dog Island holds a strategic position in the Florida Panhandle. It's sits hard by both the easerly genesis of the Northern Gulf ICW, and the charming village of Carrabelle, with its excellent marina facilities. It's a good thing that this body of land has excellent anchorages, one of which is described below!

We had Carrabelle as our home port for a year.  We frequented a cove on the inside of Dog Island called Ballast Cove.  The water is about 15 ft deep for a good way up to the beach.  We would dinghy to shore and walk across the spit of land to the ocean side and see crabs, dolphins, skates and find great shells.  I do not know of Rattlesnake Cove and am not on the boat right now to review charts.  We also anchored just behind St. George's eastern end – but watch for a long shallow point extending out.  The east end of St. George is a state park and pristine.  I caught some humongous blue crabs there.  The current through the cut between Dog and St. George is strong, so if your boat swings the other direction, make sure you put in your dinghy further up the shore before trying to fight the current…trust me, we were rowing and it was exhausting.  We gave up, went back to shore, walked the dinghy up and floating back to the mother ship.  Duh.  For hurricane protection during Dennis we went up the Apalachicola River to Saul's Creek (a total of about 10 miles) with all of the shrimp boats, and threw out three anchors and tied to four trees.  We held fine and had no issues.
Fair Winds,
Connie C. Rosenthal