Marinas we dive · St. Pete Beach
St. Petersburg Yacht Club, and the water it lives in.
Mouth of Tampa BayFort De Soto 1898Deep water
Marinas we dive · St. Pete Beach
The water
Pass-a-Grille is where the bay meets the Gulf, and the water never stops moving through it.
Boats have been running this channel since long before there was a bridge. Regular passenger service linked Gulfport to Pass-a-Grille from 1906, more than twelve years before the first bridge reached the lower Gulf beaches.
The Army fortified the bay mouth a few miles south at the same period — Fort De Soto, built 1898–1906 on Mullet Key, listed on the National Register in 1977.
1.0 miles from Pass-a-Grille Channel is close enough that the season does most of the forecasting for you. Predictable water is the easiest kind to schedule around.
St. Petersburg Yacht Club, St. Pete BeachSt. Petersburg Yacht Club lies about 1.0 miles from Pass-a-Grille Channel, with Blind Pass roughly 2.3 miles off. It is close enough to the inlet to feel it, and that distance is the single best predictor of how fast a hull fouls here.
Close to a pass, tidal exchange still reaches the berth but has lost some of its force. Growth is mixed rather than dominated by one thing, and it follows the season more predictably than water further in.
As a member club the fleet is comparatively consistent, and consistent fleets foul consistently — which makes it one of the easier places in the county to set a reliable cadence.
Timeline
A Category 4 hurricane lands at the mouth of Tampa Bay, flooding the peninsula and destroying the year-old Egmont Key lighthouse.
With the Spanish–American War underway, the Army Corps of Engineers starts seacoast defences on Mullet Key at the mouth of Tampa Bay.
Battery Laidley and Battery Bigelow go up in reinforced concrete, guarding the bay entrance.
The fort's active service ends after twelve years. The guns never fire in anger.
The Tampa Bay storm reshapes the whole coast, splitting barrier islands to the north.
The Fort De Soto Batteries are listed on 2 December, reference 77000407.
The keys inside the mouth of the bay are developed as a residential and boating community.
Deep water, strong tidal exchange, and the shortest run to the Gulf of anywhere in the county.
Things worth knowing
Distance to the nearest inlet is the strongest single predictor of fouling rate. At 1.0 miles from Pass-a-Grille Channel, with Blind Pass a further 2.3 miles off, this berth sits well within reach of it.
Member club on Pass-a-Grille Way. St. Pete Beach, on John's Pass, 1.0 miles inside Pass-a-Grille Channel — well within our regular run.
Growth in Pinellas is not linear, and at 1.0 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.
With 116 reviews it is one of the quieter entries on our list — smaller fleets tend to mean more stable, more predictable fouling.
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
The marina
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.