On Wed, 7 Feb 2007 21:51:21 -0600, "KLC Lewis"
wrote:

The most direct course I can chart from St. Pete to Moser, trying to avoid
the thinnest water as much as possible, comes out at 227 nm, or 1 day 17
hours and 15 minutes or so. I have no local knowledge of the area, and The
Cap'n is missing charts 11442 and 11420 (at least as I installed it --
thought I installed all of the charts for the Keys but perhaps not) so
there's an area of unknown depth that my plotted course crosses. Does this
more or less agree with the course Skip and Lydia were following,
mileage-wise? Long trip in unhappy weather, and big seas for shallow areas.
Depth averages about 1 1/2 fathoms, little more than 2 in the deeper areas.
I plotted deliberately to avoid areas with a charted mll depth of 6 feet or
less.

Yes, that's about right. It's a long trip for a first hop and all
approaches are relatively shallow. The route that I recommend has a
minimum of 7 to 8 feet at low tide, usually a bit more.