Naples & Marco Island Public Boat Ramps & Marinas Map

The photograph is a trailer lot at Dowling Park on the Suwannee River, in north Florida. Michael Rivera, CC BY-SA 4.0. It shows the pattern of a public ramp, trucks nose-in and trailers in a line. It is not Naples Landings and it is not Caxambas. The lanes below are the Collier County ones.

Which ramp is actually the trip

A marina dock and a public ramp are different driveways. Naples City Dock, 880 12th Avenue South, is where charter boats and small private charters meet passengers. You do not back a trailer down that face dock. Tin City, 1200 Fifth Avenue South, and Port O'Call, 550 Port O Call Way, are the cruise and rental basin on the Gordon River. The rental fleet lives there. Your own boat, on a trailer, wants a ramp with a lane and a place to park the truck.

The downtown trailer ramp is Naples Landings Park, 1101 9th Street South, about 26.1353 is the City Dock pin and Landings sits just up the bay at 26.1381° N, 81.7950° W. Plan on the Collier County $10 trailer day if you do not have a resident permit, and read the board. The county's mobile-pay day is the same idea as the beach parks: one payment, county facilities that honor it. A city beach meter is $5.00 an hour and does not launch a boat.

Bayview Park, 1500 Danford Street, 26.1154° N, 81.7725° W, is the East Naples ramp on Haldeman Creek. Use it when Landings is stacked on a Saturday or when the day is the east side of the bay rather than a run out Gordon Pass. Cocohatchee River Park, 13535 Vanderbilt Drive, 26.2869° N, 81.8211° W, is the North Naples ramp for a Wiggins Pass day. Caxambas Park, 909 Collier Court on Marco Island, 25.9082° N, 81.7131° W, is the south ramp, and it is the correct start for Kice Island and Cape Romano. Goodland's boat park and Calusa Island Marina are the Ten Thousand Islands door. Capri Paddlecraft Park, 1295 Capri Boulevard, is kayaks, not a trailer lane.

Gordon Pass, Wiggins Pass, and draft

Gordon Pass is the maintained inlet for downtown Naples. It is also a channel with boats in both directions, including the cruise boats leaving Port O'Call. Stay in the marked water. Do not anchor in the cut to "watch the sunset." The Keewaydin anchoring map is the picture of where the channel ends and the beach anchorage starts.

Wiggins Pass is shallower. A hard outgoing tide, especially against a north or onshore wind, stands the pass up into steep little waves and can put a boat on the bar if you miss the marked water. Cocohatchee is the ramp for that pass, not Landings. If you are new to the inlet, go on a rising tide with a light wind the first time, or hire a captain. The rental pontoons and deck boats at Port O'Call are not permitted in the Gulf at all. A trailer boat you own is a different set of rules, and it can still be the wrong tide.

Caxambas Pass uses a different tide station from Naples Bay. NOAA 8725110 is Naples. NOAA 8725083 is Caxambas. A low tide you read off the bay clock will put a Marco boat on the bar at the wrong hour. Cape Romano and Kice are outside that pass. The Cape Romano boat guide is the trip. The domes are submerged. They are not a ramp and they are not a beach you drive to.

Collier-Seminole State Park is the east door into the same Ten Thousand Islands backcountry, with a state park entrance fee rather than the county $10. A beach parking permit is not that fee. Confirm which booth you paid. From there you are in a creek system, not in the Gulf, until you have run a long way west.

Fuel, parking the truck, and the ride home

Fuel is at the marinas. Port O'Call and the Marco marinas sell it. A ramp lane does not. Fill the truck and the boat before you launch if the day is Keewaydin and back, and fill again in your head before a Goodland or Cape Romano run. Running out of fuel in Gordon Pass on a Saturday is a tow, not a story.

The truck has to fit when you come back. Landings and Cocohatchee fill on a calm winter Saturday. If the lot is full, do not block the lane while you debate it. Bayview is the downtown alternate. Caxambas is a drive the length of Marco Island from Naples, so leave the time in the plan. Goodland's road is not a shortcut from Fifth Avenue either.

Idle-speed and slow-speed signs are the law in the manatee zones and under a lot of Naples Bay bridges. A ramp launch does not come with a briefing unless you rented the boat. If you are renting, the boater ID rules say who needs a Florida temporary certificate. If a captain is driving, the group-size limit is the 6-pack guide.

What to open the morning you launch

Tides: NOAA 8725110 for Naples and Gordon Pass, 8725083 for Caxambas. Marine forecast: NWS Tampa Bay, zones GMZ856 and GMZ876. The month-by-month wind pattern is water and beach conditions. Beach parking, which is not this ramp, is the parking page and the beach access map.

Shelling from these ramps only works if the landing beach is uncovered. That is shelling and tides. Fishing species are the seasonal calendar. Charter boats that leave City Dock instead of a ramp are priced on fishing charters. Dolphin boats that leave Tin City are wildlife tours.

A public ramp is first-come. There is no reservation system on this page. If the lane is occupied, you wait. If the tide is too low for your draft, you wait or you do not go. The pin gets you to the parking lot. It does not get you through the pass.