You guys will need to teach me the fine art of anchoring someday - in the Baja gulf we would toss a hook at 10AM a half mile from shore and by 3PM I could walk to shore in 14 inches of water. (The tides are 30 feet there). That's when I would set the anchor proper like - when i could actually SEE where I was putting it.

Otherwise I just toss it and drag till I stop.
Same thing in Lower Ballast Point at Cat Harbor on Catalina Island. I walk the boat into the lagoon (it's about 15 inches all that way around the edge) and walk the anchor over the the place I want it to go.
Anchoring is always a big joke for me - You guys would probably make fun of me and I would be so embarrassed to anchor in your presence. I run upwind a little ways, and then I just drop everything I have over the side - chain, rope,, anchor - the whole banana - I just empty the chain locker - then I sit back and wait to see what happens. If the boat stops at some point I figure I'm good and open a beer.
I guess I'm not a very good 'anchoring' person - but it's so rare that I need to do it I have not had any real trouble yet. I do like to anchor in really shallow water and that's probably why my method works - for one - there are never any other boats around in the real shallow water and the shallow water also protects me from the big boats that like to break anchor in the middle of the night - and two - because I hook shallow I always have TOO MUCH chain out - so it's harder to drag when you have a lot of chain on the bottom. Sometimes I tie a milk carton to the anchor with a string so I can see where it is.
But someday, I am going to get lessons from those guys in Florida and New York on the proper way to anchor.