WATER & COAST
Tigertail Beach
Collier County · South Florida & the Keys
A Collier County beach park on Marco Island, where the sand most people want is on the far side of a lagoon.
ABOUT THIS PLACE
The lagoon is about fifty yards across and waist to chest deep at high tide, with a soft grassy mud bottom you sink into a little but not dangerously. Crossing it with everything held over your head is the usual way through. Beyond it is Sand Dollar Island, a spit that Hurricane Wilma created about twenty years ago by piling sand onto an offshore bar and joining it to the shore. Out there are three miles of white sand heavy with shells, among them the spiny ornamented lace murex and the banded tulip. Anyone unwilling to wade can walk around the southern end of the lagoon in about twenty minutes from the far parking lot. The Big Marco Pass Critical Wildlife Area adjoins it, where black skimmers, snowy plovers and least terns nest, and the site is on the Great Florida Birding Trail. Fiddler crabs part in front of you as you walk. Parking is ten dollars across 210 spaces, the gate is open from eight until sundown, and dogs and alcohol are not allowed
Not identified in this guide as an officially clothing-optional beach. This is a visit category, not a safety rating—check surf, lifeguards, water quality and posted rules.
BEACH CONDITIONS
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