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Florida sailing is mostly protected bay rather than open ocean, which is what makes it good for learning and for cruising in company.
Sarasota Bay and Tampa Bay on the Gulf side give you steady sea breezes and flat water. Charlotte Harbor is the largest sheltered water on that coast, wide enough to sail all day and shallow enough to anchor almost anywhere. Biscayne Bay in Miami-Dade County is the winter one, with Biscayne National Park at the south end. Pensacola Bay and St Andrews Bay hold the Panhandle fleets. In the Keys, Key West is the jumping-off point for the Dry Tortugas, seventy miles west with nothing in between.
Charlotte County. The state gives its size as 42,518 acres in one place and about 46,000 in another, and most of that is not walkable ground at all: it is mangrove shoreline, tidal creek and salt marsh held undeveloped to keep the estuary intact.
Open the guide →Miami-Dade County. Four systems meet inside it and each depends on the next: the mangrove forest along the shoreline, the shallow water of Biscayne Bay, the northernmost Florida Keys, and the coral reef offshore.
Open the guide →Escambia County. The Santa Rosa Island Authority runs this shore and puts lifeguards on four parts of it: Casino Beach, Park East, the Fort Pickens Gate park and Quietwater Beach. Full-time cover runs June through August, with weekends from the middle of April through September, 9:30 a.m. to 6 p.m.
Open the guide →Bay County. Bay County's main shore, and the rules here are worth knowing before you arrive. A red flag means rip currents are strong enough to be dangerous; double red means the Gulf is closed to swimming altogether, and that one is enforced.
Open the guide →Monroe County. At the ocean end of Duval Street, open sunrise to sunset, within walking distance of the shops and restaurants at the bottom of the street. The water is shallow and the Emma Carrero Cates Pier runs out from the sand.
Open the guide →Monroe County. About 70 miles west of Key West and reached only by ferry, seaplane or private boat. Entry is $15 a person and covers seven days in a row, and nobody under 16 pays.
Open the guide →Two meanings, both answered. For a short trip on the water, the river and spring cruises are the ones with something to look at: Wakulla Springs runs a guided river cruise past alligators and wading birds, Silver Springs in Marion County runs glass-bottom boats, and Myakka River State Park in Sarasota County runs what it calls the largest airboat of its kind.
Six Florida ports send cruise ships out, and a seventh, Key West, is a port of call.
From PortMiami, on Dodge Island off downtown Miami in Miami-Dade County. The port lists 26 cruise lines that sail from it or call there, and MSC, Royal Caribbean, Norwegian, Carnival and Virgin Voyages have terminals of their own; Terminal C takes ships from several lines and Terminal J the small and luxury ships.
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