Marinas we dive · Madeira Beach
Hubbard's Marina, and the water it lives in.
John's PassFleet since 1928Boardwalk built 1980
Marinas we dive · Madeira Beach
The water
Everything at John's Pass traces back to one night. On 27 September 1848 a Category 4 hurricane came ashore at the mouth of Tampa Bay and cut a new opening through the barrier island. John Levique and Joseph Silva, sailing home from a turtle-selling run to New Orleans, found the gap and sailed through it. The pass took his name.
What the storm created was a permanent, high-velocity connection between Boca Ciega Bay and the Gulf — which is exactly what a working fishing and charter fleet needs. The pass runs about 150 feet wide and 10 feet deep, and the water moves hard through it on every tide.
The Hubbard name is bound up with the modern waterfront. In 1980 Wilson Hubbard persuaded the City of Madeira Beach to build a boardwalk at the pass; it has been extended repeatedly since and now runs about 1,100 feet.
At 0.0 miles from John's Pass, this water never stops moving. Cleaning gets planned around slack tide, not around the calendar.
Hubbard's Marina, Madeira BeachHubbard's Marina lies about 0.0 miles from John's Pass, with Blind Pass roughly 4.2 miles off. It sits effectively on the inlet itself, and that distance is the single best predictor of how fast a hull fouls here.
Water here turns over on every tide. That constant exchange keeps slime down and temperatures closer to Gulf conditions, but it delivers an unbroken supply of barnacle larvae to anything that holds still. Hard growth dominates, and it sets fast.
A private marina with a settled fleet gives us the most useful thing possible: the same hulls over time, so the cadence gets sharper with every visit.
Timeline
A Category 4 hurricane cuts a new inlet between what are now Madeira Beach and Treasure Island.
Levique and Silva sail through on their way home from New Orleans.
Both men take 160-acre federal grants around the new pass.
A two-lane drawbridge spans the pass.
Replaced as traffic grows.
Wilson Hubbard convinces Madeira Beach to build it. It grows to 1,100 feet.
The third crossing opens.
Charter, commercial and pleasure traffic share one of the busiest inlets on the coast.
Things worth knowing
Distance to the nearest inlet is the strongest single predictor of fouling rate. At 0.0 miles from John's Pass, with Blind Pass a further 4.2 miles off, this berth sits right in the tidal stream.
At John's Pass — charter and tour fleet. Madeira Beach, on John's Pass, 0.0 miles inside John's Pass — well within our regular run.
Growth in Pinellas is not linear, and at 0.0 miles in the seasonal swing is muted by constant exchange. A cadence set for August will be wrong in January.
Bare metal fouls faster than painted surface everywhere on this coast, and in moving water it is relentless. Props, shafts and struts usually signal the timing before the paint does.
Manatees, dolphins and grass beds share John's Pass. Method matters as much as schedule — media matched to the paint, and nothing scoured into the bottom.
12,906 Google reviews at 4.8 stars puts this among the busier facilities we cover, and busier basins mean more hull traffic moving growth around.
From the diver
Pass water moves hard and constantly. That flushing keeps slime down, but it delivers an endless supply of barnacle larvae to anything stationary.
Current is a working condition, not a detail. Cleaning here is planned around slack tide, which is a real constraint on scheduling.
Hard growth dominates and it sets fast. Waiting is more expensive in a pass than almost anywhere else on this coast.
Gallery
We dive John's Pass and know how it behaves through the season. Tell us the boat and the slip and we'll send a number and a cadence that fits the water it actually sits in.