Plan A: (preferred), find someone that has their anchor set and tie up to them.

Plan B: On my 28 I have a cleat set just forward of the cockpit on my side that I use in a situation where I am on my own or with the kids. Drop the anchor then when I am sure it is set, transfer it to the bow if needed.

plan C: If you are serious about setting an anchor off the bow , first check your depth, measure out your line( about 6X) attach to the bow, then drop the anchor from the cockpit, currents can easily be more than you expect. You can always shorten up or give out more after you have the anchor set.

I do something similiar with minor adjustment- we drop the fortress off the side of cockpit but the anchor line is already run through front cleat and then run back to cockpit. So we drop anchor and feed out scope from cockpit then tie off on side cleat. Dropping anchor is a breeze but still have to climb up and do the dance when retrieving - need to figure out some type of pulley system to retrieve from the side.

My 28' Checkmate is also tough...either you squeeze through the deck hatch or do the wobble dance to the bow... I usually drop the anchor from the cockpit, step onto the passenger bolster seat to climb over the windshield, and then wobble dance to the bow cleat to tie off while letting the wind do the work!!

I grab anchor from under the back seat. Step from back seat onto my 12" walkaround and walk to bow. Set anchor and walk around the cockpit and step back into rear seat. Pretty nifty...

We anchor most of the time, the wife heads out to the bow as I drop anchor and put it in reverse to get the right scope. As everyone has said doing the long walk on a waxed deck can get interesting.

Not having safe access to the bow of a boat is a stupid tradeoff made in most cases for cosmetic purposes.
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Use a line as long as your boat, with an eye in one end, in both ends would be even better. Snap a carabeaner(sp?) to the eye, and also around the anchor line. Tie the other end of the line to a mid cleat (or hang the second eye loop over the cleat). The carabeaner( is now just free floating on the anchor line, not doing anything. set your anchor like you always do. When it's time to retreave the anchor, start pulling on the carabeaner line until you can grab the anchor line, doing all of this from where ever it's safe for you to be, probably the cockpit. Then just pull up the anchor by pulling up the anchor line.

I have a 4" walk around ledge and a flat deck so its pretty simple. My last boat was a nightmare having to crawl over the windshield.

Now if I can only get an anchor that will hold the boat. My wife went out and bought one while I was still finishing the boat, but its one of the white coated anchors that don't hold for $#it. I need to go get one that will hold so I'm not chasing the boat across the sand bar like a circus act again. Turned my back for two minutes and the boat was a 100 feet away drifting towards a group of boats. Thankfully I caught it time!

I tied a line from the bow eye that would reach the side cleat by the steering wheel. From the cockpit, drop the anchor, clip the bitter end to the line to the bow eye, and let drop into water. When I wanted to leave, pull up on anchor line and snag line with boat hook (had two floats on bitter end of anchor line) that when the stress was off the line it would float up. Leave line looped from bow eye to cleat on side of boat.

Then, I installed a windlass with anchor and 70 feet of chain for my "day" anchor. Now, just push button to lower and raise. Makes front of boat ugly to most hp go fast boaters, but then IDGAF what anyone else thinks. They didn't like my rig before anyway with 12 ft of Bimini Cover Up 100% of the time either.

www.slideanchor.com