A Guide to the Sandbars Around Naples

A sandbar day is the local weekend. Boats nose up to a shallow shelf, anchors go in, chairs come out of the console, and a stretch of water two feet deep turns into a beach that didn't exist that morning and won't exist that evening.

It is also the single hardest Naples experience to arrange from shore, because every sandbar worth sitting on is unreachable on foot.

Where the sandbars are

1. 1

   Keewaydin Island

   South of Gordon Pass

   The famous one. Eight miles of undeveloped barrier island with a broad shallow shelf on the bay side where the boats raft up. No bridge, no road, no facilities — access is by water only.

2. 2

   Kice Island & Cape Romano

   South of Marco

   Wilder and further, with the best shelling of the group. A longer run, and worth it on a calm day.

3. 3

   The Marco back bay bars

   Capri Pass / Big Marco River

   Sheltered, family-friendly and the busiest on a Saturday. Good when the Gulf is choppy.

4. 4

   Wiggins Pass shoals

   North Naples

   Small, shifting and tide-dependent, but close to the north-end marinas and easy on a short outing.

Timing is the entire skill

A sandbar is only a sandbar around low tide. Two hours either side of low is the working window; at high water the same spot is chest-deep and the boats have moved on. Naples runs mixed semidiurnal tides, so on many days there is one useful low and one that barely uncovers anything — which is why the good days aren't simply weekends.

How people actually get out there

• Own a boat. Straightforward if you live here. Not an option for a week's holiday.
• Borrow one. Fine if a local friend knows the pass, the bars and where the water thins out. Most visitors don't have that friend.
• Take a captained charter. Someone else picks the bar that's actually exposed that afternoon, gets you onto it, and moves if the wind turns. The half-day sandbar-and-swim trips out of Naples Bay are built around exactly this, and priced per boat, so four to six people share one cost.

What to bring

• Water shoes — the shell hash on the bar edges is sharper than it looks.
• More drinking water than you think. There is no shade and no shop.
• A dry bag. Everything gets wet on the transfer, every time.
• Reef-safe sunscreen and a hat with a chin strap. The sea breeze takes hats.
• A rubbish bag. Carry out everything, including bottle caps — this is nesting-bird habitat.

The etiquette

Anchor off the crowd, not into it. Keep music at conversation volume — sound carries absurdly well across flat water. Give roped-off shorebird nesting areas a wide berth between spring and late summer. And leave before the tide covers your anchor: watching someone wade for a submerged line at dusk is a Naples tradition nobody enjoys being part of.