We made the trip from Hudson, FL thru Panama City to Mobile Bay last spring. You'll be addressing draft issues north from Anclote Key (Tarpon Springs) to Apalachicola, all the way thru Florida's "Big Bend."
Beginning north of Anclote, you'll find 2-3' depths up to three miles from shore. There are limited places to dock or anchor, and all involve navigating narrow, shallow channels that are edged with limestone ridges and protected seagrass beds. Our schooner draws only 2'10" with the centerboard up and in many places we were forced to wait for high tide in order to have sufficient water to navigate the channels. We even bumped the bottom once in the channel leading into Suwannee River, albeit on a falling tide and in 2-3' waves being driven by winds around 20 knots.
Many people anchor at Anclote Key and wait for a weather window to cross direct to Cedar Key or even Apalachicola (reverse on the return trip). That was our original plan but we had to alter it as the trip progressed due to weather - the wind was almost consistently out of the northwest, directly on the nose.
Possible put-ins north of Anclote Key include Port Richey, Hudson, Crystal River, Yankeetown (on the Withlahoochee River), Suwannee, Cedar Key and Steinhatchee. Each has sufficient depths but each has the low tide entrance problem. And even if you planned to stop at each one, sooner or later you'll face an overnight crossing to finally reach Apalachicola. We went Hudson-Yankeetown-Suwanee, then did a 25-hour crossing to Apalachicola (in 20 knot winds on the nose and 40 degree temperatures, as it turned out).
Once at Apalachicola, you can motor up the ICW to Panama City; or motor over to Port St Joe and then re-enter the Gulf to sail up to Panama City.
Don't get me wrong, we really enjoyed the trip and learned a lot about our new boat doing it. Of the places we put in (all, by the way, docking vs. anchoring, although we easily could have anchored in the Suwannee River), the ones I'd go back to were Hudson and Suwannee, both because they were neat little towns. The marina we used at Yankeetown was nice but was a very long motor up the river and then there was nothing else there once we arrived. Crystal River looked to be a good anchorage and this time of year you'd see manatee, but there's nothing else there. Same for Steinhatchee, not a lot there and a fair motor up the river to reach it. Cedar Key is said to be nice but has a tricky channel and you have to anchor out and dinghy in.
Apalachicola was a terrific town and we'll definitely return there someday. But the next time we head south we'll jump off from there and go direct to Anclote Key.
