Should I plan a FL beach vacation... with my boat?

[MOA_Chaser]

We're not going to be able to make the Bimini trip... but last year we went to Fort Myers Beach and rented a condo. Left the boat at home.

We've never boated outside of a river. We were wondering about the logistics though of bringing our boat to a Gulf destination sometime this summer. I have a galvanized trailer, so I'm set there... need a GPS, better flotation devices, etc. but I can get all that ready no problem.

I'm mostly wondering about how easy it is for a visitor to get his boat on the water from the trailer and enjoy it for the day (retrieving it daily), or to find a place where I could dock it for a week and cruise around whenever we wanted. We'd be open to anywhere from the panhandle down to Ft. Myers or so.

Is it a big PITA to do something like this? How do you find a place to put in? We had lots of fun without the boat, but we rented jet skis for a dolphin tour and had a BLAST. I'm sure it would be almost as fun with the boat.

Any advice (either way) would be greatly appreciated!

 

[txav8r]

I don't have any experience with it @MOA_Chaser , but it has to be a doable deal. We have lots of guys from Mobile to Naples that have boats that they trailer. Keep checking the thread...It is doable!

 

[MOA_Chaser]

Yeah I'm kind of excited about it. Being a river boater, it's like always boating on a four lane highway on the weekends. Jetskiers on the river are automatically thought of as "jerks" because of their antics in the limited room. But if I get to move to Florida, a jet ski is the FIRST thing I'll buy! To have all that room was awesome! And with fuel prices hopefully staying low(er) this year, I'm thinking it might be the time to take the boat.

 

[Murf'n'surf]

You can stay in Fort Myers Beach and trailer 10 minutes to the State Park and launch. From there you can boat in the Intra Coastal channel and visit many places to eat on the water and venture out into the Gulf and hang out in front of the Lani Kai hotel. The key is finding a hotel that can accommodate your tow rig and trailer.

Going South from Fort Myers Beach you can launch in North Naples (30 minutes awAy) and South Naples (1 hour away) and Marco Island (1.5 hours away). All of these areas have a fair amount of things to do and see by water.

 

[Julian]

We do this in NC, so it has to be doable in FL! We drive from Raleigh down to Wilmington and stay at the Wilmington Hilton Garden Inn. It has tons of parking as it is in (last I checked), an undeveloped strip mall area....so we park there, and put the boat in for the day and pull her out at the end of the day. I would love to rent a house with a slip/lift on the intercoastal....

 

[MOA_Chaser]

Yeah that's the problem is the trailer. We rented a condo last time. It was great being right on the beach but the parking isn't so good for stuff like that.

I'd probably be nervous leaving it anywhere unless under watch. I have a pair of Wet Sounds on the tower, amps inside...

 

[Cobra Jet Steering LLC]

Check out the Tampa bay area, it just doesn't get any better.

 

[MOA_Chaser]

If I get the chance to move, it will very likely be just south of Tampa, within a reasonable commute distance (in case I need to find another software dev job and can't find a remote opportunity) but out of the city for sure!! It's a tech hub!

 

[Big Shasta]

Panama City Beach is very doable. Plan it for around the 4th of July and I'll let you use my lifted slip on the lagoon and park the trailer at my house ....no need to pull it out every night. We vacation at Lake Martin with the boat every year so it'll just be sitting empty from about June 27 - July 18.

There are countless condos and hotels within a couple miles of the slip so you could stay wherever you wanted. It's security monitored but it is open to anyone who walked around to the docks. I've been there a couple years and haven't had any issues.

As far as on the water, we're not as flashy as say Tampa but the water is just as beautiful. We have 4 or 5 places to dock up and eat but not like bigger cities. Shell island is awesome for just relaxing on the beach away from the crowds. Fuel on the water is about 1.25 per gallon higher than vehicle gas so plan for that.

Lots of Jet ski places if you wanted to do that also and we see dolphins 99.9% of the times we go out. No need to rent a tour.

 

[Britboater]

https://jetboaters.net/threads/vacation-begins-punta-gorda-florida.3408/

A fellow Jetboater came to Punta Gorda last Labor Day, these waters aren't familiar with me but I find navigation fairly easy, yes I do have a GPS, but mainly for depth and piece of mind. With the flat landscape you can be sometimes disorientated, and there are some very shallow parts, this being one of the reasons I choose a jet drive boat initially, other than that I'd say go for it .

 

[ptwb]

If vacationing in Fort Myers, I wouldn't bother bringing the boat. I trailered our boat down to Sanibel once but we all agreed we would not bother doing it again. If I lived outside FL, the only places I would consider trailering a boat too for a vacation would be Clearwater-Tarpon Springs area and the FL keys. Maybe BocaGrande too.

 

[GiddYupJoe]

If vacationing in Fort Myers, I wouldn't bother bringing the boat. I trailered our boat down to Sanibel once but we all agreed we would not bother doing it again. If I lived outside FL, the only places I would consider trailering a boat too for a vacation would be Clearwater-Tarpon Springs area and the FL keys. Maybe BocaGrande too.

@ptwb Going to Sanibel all the time as a kid, I have always wanted to take this trip with the boat. Can you elaborate as to why you would never do it again?

 

[MOA_Chaser]

I'd like to hear as well... parking at the public beaches is horrendous. We had to wait over an hour for a family to decide they wanted to leave the beach and wait for their spot before we could even go. If it wasn't so hot out, we could have been there for hours if everyone stayed longer. It would be nice to go to any beach you want, and just anchor off shore. I'm thinking we'd really enjoy all the space we'd have to boat, since we've only been on rivers until now.

 

[ptwb]

I guess it depends on what you really want to do with the boat. I personally like using the boat to get to places that you can't already get to by car. From Fort Myers,Sanibel this really means heading north to Cabbage Key and Boca Grande. Before the hurricanes, there use to be some great beaches and sandbars that I hung out at alot growing up, but a lot got washed away and now it's really deep in front of some of the remote beaches. One spot is kind of back on Cayo Costa, but not like it use to be. It seemed everybody was hanging out on the inland side of the islands near passes, and honestly, IMO, it's just not worth it, more muck than sand. Rent a boat if you're curious I guess. You can't see your own feet in 2' of water. I grew up nearby in Port Charlotte and boated a lot around Boca Grande. Cabbage key is probably the best destination in the area, but would I trailer a boat just for that? No. Just take a ferry ride. Another issue with that area and you need to read the news and check conditions or ask locals, is the nearby rivers. We trailered to BocaGrande last year and it was terrible. The worst I've ever seen it. There had been so much prior rain and so much fresh water outflow from the rivers that the beaches were not clear and more reddish/brown.

My new favorite spots besides the keys is now either south of st pete around egmont key or north near tarpon springs and boating between clearwater beach and anclote.

 

[ptwb]

If you're taking the boat to basically put it in the water and then anchor in front of a public beach, I guess, then ok, take the boat. That happens a lot down there in fort myers, but it gets crowded with boats and you're still dealing with all the people that also drove there. I use to do that, but don't anymore as I guess I don't particularly care for that anymore. I prefer more private locations that only boats get to, and there's not really many around fort myers. You have to head north.

 

[MOA_Chaser]

The kids love the beach and we'd spend a lot of time there. The best option for me, I think, would be to find a beachfront condo with a marina somewhat nearby so that the kids can go to the beach whenever they wanted (while I sleep in, etc LOL) ... and if we wanted to take the boat out we'd drive a short distance and take it into the Gulf. We'd be sightseeing, tubing, wakeboarding possibly, and take breaks by pulling up to a beach... kind of like what we do now on the river with party coves, except we could get away from the congestion.

I wouldn't have any problem with leaving my boat in the water for a week or so, and then doing a good flush/cleanout when I get home, right?

 

[ptwb]

For a beach, IMO, the best option is to stay either on the beach directly or within walking distance. We took our boat to SouthSeas plantation (or whatever it's called now), and I kept the boat at a slip there. Everybody went on the boat the first day, but the rest of the time, they then just used SouthSeas beach. At this point, the boat was just for sight seeing by a few of us and going up to cabbage key. I even pulled the boat out early and left it in their lockup.

All my boating is in saltwater and I've never had a problem, but, I've also never left a boat in the water more than 3 days. That's my rule. And I will still "usually" flush with fresh water at the end of the day if it's convenient enough. I have shutoff valves and use them when flushing in the water. When I was younger growing up in nearby PortCharolotte, had a whaler, after a week in the water, there was some growth and texture and trying to clean it off just was no fun. Now whenever I'm doing a week, like in the keys, I specifically plan one day early/midweek to pull the boat out and leave it out for one day and do other things that day.

 

[Cobra Jet Steering LLC]

We have many public boat ramps, our beaches are usually rated as some of the best in the nation.
I like the area around Egmont key & Fort Desoto. There are several islands and sand bars to anchor up to. You can even camp on some of them.
Also the water inside the intercostal is really great for water sports. Or just sight seeing. I have been here since 1972 after living in Mass for 20 years .
I have seen a lot of changes over the years , but I still think it is a great place if you love the water.
One thing to remember is that the water, and the general weather changes considerably from one location to another, east coast is different than the west coast and the temperatures are very different from one end to the other.

 

[McMark]

If your location is flexible, I have a place in Daytona Beach Shores that I rent. The marina is at the end of the block and the driveway is long enough for a truck and trailer. I haul our boat down from PA and have a great time with it there. If you didn't feel like hauling, the marina has jet boats, flats boats, and jet skis for rent. Hopefully in about 4 years I'll be moving there full time.

www.vrbo.com/262293

 

[JetPowered]

Wow, the price is right on that place.