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I've exclusively gone out to sail in Lake Travis in Austin. Every time I go out I always want to stop and swim but I can never find the right place to do it. The lake is at pretty low levels but it's still too deep to anchor (100+ feet).

The first problem is that I can't find any sandy spots to beach the which they're supposed to be able to do quite well (and was one of the selling points for me.)

The second problem is that the depth of the lake is almost L shaped. It goes from 20' to 100' very quickly, and the 20' zone is about 6-10' from the rocky shore.I believe to anchor at a depth of 20' you'd need about 100' of line out, and with such a limited margin for error being so close to the shore, I just don't know how to anchor safely.

Is Lake Travis just not anchor-friendly or is there something I'm missing?

Recommend using a two or three point rocky shoreline technique. There’s YouTube videos like S/V Delos that show how they do it in rocky islands in the S. Pacific.
One way is to drop your main anchor rode out 150 feet or so to catch the ledge as far out as you can. Backing in toward the shore, Dingy in a second anchor and secure it to the shore. Pull in your main rode to get it to a 5:1 or less if u can while keeping your rode to the shore taught. If you have a third line use it as a second anchor point to the shore forming a triangle. Requires a good crew and a way to get lines to the shore and secured.
I’ve done this technique in Maine. Have to coordinate crew activities, but it works

Using the above technique, this is what I intend to use next year up at Lake Georg, NY.

Due to lack of slips, I have not brought Nice Aft to the lake for two years. I came up with a solution which matched what dustoff posted. I will use this land anchor (if I can locate one) instead of securing to a tree.
https://www.westmarine.com/west-marine- ... 63853.html

Same problems at Lake Powell on my dad's boat back in the old days when there was water there. Dustoff is correct on anchoring in deep water close to shore: You drop all 100 feet of line along with your 50 feet of chain over the side and drive backwards towards the shore hoping you catch something on the bottom before you hit the rocks. Dad did that at Powell and it was 50/50 - sometimes the anchor would set and the boat would stop going backwards about 40 feet from the shore and sometimes we would just keep going right up to about 10 feet from shore and dad would slam into forward and get us out of there. It was like sliding the anchor across smooth rock. Not sure what else you can do.

Q: How to anchor in deep water and narrow short depth shore with rocks?
A: VERY CAREFULLY

BOAT has it right!
While a two point can work the three point technique is the way to go.

I’ve seen it also work with two deep anchors and one shore anchor.
The rational is that if a single deep anchor lets loose then the second one helps keep you of shore instead of becoming intimate with the rocky shoreline.

Hunting for a better location with a wider short depth shore area might be a better choice.
The weather in your region can change rapidly ( been there done that ) so a solid anchoring is important.
Looking at the Navionics depth map for Lake Travis one can see that while there are locations like you describe there are considerable broad areas that should allow you to anchor in 30 to 20 feet depths.

Given a Mac26X or Mac26M is 26 feet it’s generally a good idea to have two anchors and two lines of at least approximately 5 times boat length ( or more) so that one has the capability to effect a 2 point anchor. Now if your only sailing/motoring in a 10 foot deep lake then that can seem like a lot of anchor line., but let me explain …

A typical anchoring recommendation is a scope of avg of 7:1 ( 70 feet of line for a 10 ft depth… or 120 feet of line for a 20 foot depth).
So a 120 feet of anchor line goes pretty quick!

We have a Danforth style and a plow type anchors (which is something we appreciate our PO for providing with Over Easy and we are very grateful for). These allow us to change anchor style depending upon bottom conditions. We have rigged our Danforth with a ‘breakaway’ so that if we were ever to jam our anchor we can over run a jammed anchor and with sufficient force the breakaways let go from the tang and the line lift point moves up to the blade junction with allows the blades to lift out without the tang leverage.

The plow anchor is nice too especially with sand bottom but has REALLY dug deep through the Southern estuaries ‘Pluff Mud’ before finding something substantial to dig into. The problem it trying to get it out! We had to Jack lever several times the anchor line with the boat to eventually get it freed once. For awhile we thought either something was gonna break or we would lose the anchor!🫣 So after tat the plow was secondary to the Danforth with the tang breakaways!

Hope this helped some….
Best Regards,
Over Easy