Smokehouse Bay – Click for Chartview

Smokehouse Bay lies in the heart of northern Marco Island. This fortunate body of water plays host to Esplanade Marina and a good anchorage. Its entrance channel leaves the unofficial Marco Island to Naples waterway west of marker #14. Our directory for this anchorage lists 4’6″ft as a minimum depth, so a 5’7″ draft seems questionable. Skipper Oldershaw’s comments are in response to earlier questions about navigating Smokehouse Bay, /?p=137310.

Smokehouse Bay has a fairly narrow 3′ mlw bar running north south in the center of the north half of the bay. Depths outside this bar around the edges of the bay are typically 12′ in soft, smelly mud. There’s plenty of room to anchor away from the bar in the eastern half of the bay away from the entry channel that heads south to the marina. The shallowest spot is in entrance route in the eastern corner of Collier Bay at 25 57.955N, 81 43.900W. Keep away from the marker R2 and hug the seawalls as you make the turn to starboard but watch for outbound vessels that don’t know why you’re doing that. A 6′ draft can be carried to the bay.
The bar in Smokehouse Bay can be faintly seen in the aerial view of the Collier County Property Appraisers GIS web site at http://www.collierappraiser.com/webmap/Map.aspx?ccpaver=1.9.2&msize=L when you zoom in. The cloudy water on the west side of the bay is not shallow.
Lee Oldershaw

Click Here To View the Western Florida Cruisers’ Net Anchorage Directory Listing For the Smokehouse Bay – Marco Island Anchorage

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