A Boater's Guide to Marinas in Tampa Bay

Tampa Bay is Florida's biggest open-water playground, a vast protected estuary ringed by Tampa, St. Petersburg, Clearwater, and the Gulf beaches, with passes that put you on grouper bottom or a sandbar in minutes. The marinas around the bay reflect that range: downtown slips for yachts, hurricane rated dry stacks, old school boatyards, and barrier island fuel docks. Here are seven from the Waypoint directory, roughly east to west around the bay. Every fact comes from the business's audited listing or its own website.

The marinas and yards

The Pointe Marina at Harbour Island sits on Harbour Island in downtown Tampa with floating docks and fixed slips. The marina's own site says it is one of the only marinas in the area that can accommodate vessels larger than 100 feet, and the surrounding development puts restaurants and waterfront dining steps from the dock.

Also in Tampa, Tampa Bay Marina leases uncovered wet slips and lifts. Per its site, current availability covers 30 to 40 foot wet slips plus 13,000 and 20,000 pound lifts, with 45 to 60 foot slips coming soon, and every rental includes power, a hose connection, a personal dock box, and 24 hour access.

Across the bay in St. Petersburg, Loggerhead Marina St. Petersburg on Frenchman's Creek pairs wet slips with a hurricane rated dry storage facility that holds 327 boats, with quick access to both Tampa Bay and the Gulf.

St. Petersburg also hosts one of the bay's oldest yards: Embree Marine, a full service boatyard since 1947 with a 55 ton Travelift that handles vessels over 70 feet.

For boaters who live where they float, Blind Pass Marina in St. Pete Beach is, per its listing, the only licensed liveaboard marina in Pinellas County.

On the north end of Treasure Island, Johns Pass Marina fronts the pass itself with 34 wet slips for boats up to 75 feet, limited outside dry storage for vessels to 30 feet, and both ethanol free gas and diesel, per the marina's site, with bait, tackle, and a charter boat center on the property.

A few minutes north in Madeira Beach, Snug Harbor Boatworks at 13625 Gulf Boulevard is a working yard offering bottom painting for power and sail, trailer and survey haul outs, small repairs, and detailing, reachable by land or water.

Reading the bay

Geography sorts these choices. Boats kept in downtown Tampa trade Gulf access time for city convenience; the run down the bay past the Skyway to Egmont Key is long but protected, and the shipping channel traffic keeps you honest. Pinellas side marinas put you minutes from Johns Pass or Pass-a-Grille and the open Gulf, which is why the beach communities carry so much of the region's dry storage and fuel business. And dry storage earns its keep here the same way it does everywhere in Florida: June through November, a rack beats a slip when a storm threatens, which is why hurricane rated dry stacks fill up fast and why it pays to ask any marina how it handles haul out when a named storm approaches.

One more Tampa Bay habit worth building: the bay is big enough to get genuinely rough on a windy afternoon, so boaters here learn to check the forecast against the fetch. A marina close to your favorite water does more for your season than any single amenity.

Find your slip

The full picture lives on the Tampa Bay storage and marina page, where every Waypoint listing is checked against the business's own website. Need a specific setup, a lift for a heavy center console, a liveaboard slip, a survey haul out? Post it on In Search Of and matching Tampa Bay pros get the request by email with one tap to take the job.