Chain is a good friend as much as you can get out, it limits the pull energy on the anchor.

I would consider a second anchor at 15-20 degrees differed from your first one.

If your sleeping on the boat (you mention camping so I don't know if your just anchoring and sleeping on shore) on some GPS, I know I have this feature on my Azimut, you can set a radius alarm say 75-100 feet from a point and the alarm goes off if you swing out of the circle.

I always sleep lightly at anchor anyway so anything that changes usually wakes you up like change in wave noise on the hull and such.

It's a blast, hope this helps and you have fun!

If on the river, 90 % of the time I anchor the bow facing out and tie the ass end to the bank. This always for easy acces to ladder and swim platform in about waste deep water.... and the boat will take any waves head on that way.

If no bank, use anchor alarm, and drift around.

I have 100 foot rope, 15 foot chain, and a big dan forth anchor.

this was a small raft up and everyone was just tied up, I was the only anchored boat. in a bout 3 mph current. there were a few more ski boats on the right out of the picture.
http://a6.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphot..._7690647_n.jpg

right anchor for the job I actually like to use two. and lights

Anchor alarm sounds intriguing. I'll have to see if my GPS has one. Make sure you anchor where some idiot won't run you over. Your lights will blend into the shoreline.

My Garmin has a feature called Anchor drag which you set the amount of movement (drag) that you want it to allow before it sounds.

My lorance, has it, i set it to 100 foot. and then dim the screen. works like a charm.

But an app that does it is pretty cool too, will look into that.

A lot of good information here! I really like the idea of an anchor alarm. I had not heard of that before.

One of my friends from the board has a box anchor and absolutely loves it. My hesitation is that it is not uncommon to get snagged on a stump or something in the bottom of Lake Travis and be unable to pull the anchor back up. I get mad enough losing a normal anchor, I'd really get upset losing an expensive box anchor.

Then again you wouldn't drift anywhere during the night!

Then again you wouldn't drift anywhere during the night!