St. Petersburg, Florida: Tampa Bay’s Lore-Filled, Boat Friendly Haunt
Ah, St. Petersburg, Florida. Often called St. Pete, St. Petes, or The Burg with a small smile prompted by a good memory, “The Sunshine City” has a special place in many hearts. All kinds of boaters get sucked into The Burg, a city which from the air almost looks like a downtown built around the marina. Cruisers going down the ICW, perhaps doing the Great Loop, might need a pit stop. Sportfishermen chase tarpon here and use St. Pete as a base for heading out into the Gulf for more open water prey. Of course cruise ships ply these waters to and from the Tampa terminal. Many sailors who venture into these warm shallow waters never leave. Here is a place with both 360 days of sun a year and in the running for most lightning strikes in the state—take the good with the bad I suppose. The famous white sand beaches and sunsets over the Gulf of America are as good as the hype. Cocktails with fruity garnishes and little umbrellas are cheap.
But beyond the Florida vacation surface is an element to St. Petes that seeps into everything and can only be described as the lore. There’s an intoxicating mix of strange history and unique flavors. Exotic elements rarely mixed. When I lived there during my college years, I interviewed a treasure diver who specialized in finding 1950s era gold rings from the wealthy yachties who’d party on the outlying islets and sandbars. I recall the hot tears in the eyes of a woman recalling how the Union Navy shelled the farm of her ancestors during the Civil War—St. Pete being the only location on the Gulf Coast of Florida to be attacked. My grandpa served in the US Air Force during WWII out of the nearby MacDill Air Force Base. He learned of the bombings of Nagasaki and Hiroshima there from a guy who sold him an ice cream cone.
Locals will still invoke the green benches, a vast plaza of hundreds of green painted benches that served as a place to sit with friends or meet strangers. Original social media in a sense. The green bench still stands as a symbol of the city alongside the giant white pelicans that take flight at sunset. You can see a baseball signed by Fidel Castro on the pier and hang out with the fishing bros trying to snag sheepshead. There’s the best smoked mullet around and swanky Spanish-style rose sandstone hotels. “Old Hitler” a legendary giant hammerhead shark might’ve ripped your tarpon off the line while the Sunshine Skyway Bridge looms over it all. St. Pete, we salute thee.
Marina Situation
The greater St. Pete and Tampa Bay area is loaded with many marinas ranging from large sprawling public docks to tiny, quiet private enclaves and semi-legal mooring fields to which entire dense chapters of cruising guides are devoted. For the sake of brevity in this piece, and because this is where I used to hang out, we’re zooming in on the offerings of the St. Petersburg Municipal Marina of the North and South Yacht Basins oriented around the St. Pete Pier and Demens Landing Park. This sprawling amenity has 640 permanent wet slips with 500’ of transient dockage. The fully loaded marina has fuel, electric and water hookups, shower and laundry facilities, bait, and pretty much whatever one would expect.
Skippers should keep in mind that the average depth of Tampa Bay is around 15 feet. The channel markers around here are pretty unforgiving, although the sandy bottom is fairly gentle on hulls. I had to kedge my first sailboat, a Catalina 27, off a local key once. The most important thing for me to do was crack a beer and wait several hours for the tide to rise. Luckily it wasn’t ebbing as I only had one can.
St. Petes to-Dos
1. The Downtown
The ‘Burg is one of those towns where one hops off the boat and find oneself smack in the middle of the action. The city is famous for its waterfront park system that stretches for miles between Coffee Pot Bayou to the north and the Albert Whitted Airport to the south. Towering banyan trees and the sweet scent of blooming jasmine accentuate this public lawn and event space. There’s usually some kind of live music or food themed fun going on, even the Firestone Grand Prix. What’s more, dozens if not hundreds of bars, restaurants, coffeeshops, and shopping opportunities extend off the waterfront drag for blocks trending inland. Jannus Live is a pretty large outdoor music venue that may draw you in.
You’ll inevitably wander onto the 26-acre St. Pete Pier that was completely revamped and reopened in 2020 after a dramatic political showdown back in the early 2010s when I lived there. The world’s largest collection of autographed baseballs of the St. Petersburg Museum of History is there, including one from Fidel Castro who flirted with the MLB only to instead hop on the yacht Granma to sail to Cuba and start his revolution. Fully enjoying the pier can easily eat up a whole afternoon.
As far as getting deep into The Burg landmarks, dressing up for a few cocktails at The Vinoy Resort housed within the iconic Spanish mission-styled historic building might be your scene. The Dalí Museum is the largest collection of original Salvador Dalí paintings outside of Spain and a reliable source for trippy experimental art. The Dalí is also blocks from the Al Lang Stadium for soccer fans and the Mahaffey Theater, a large performing arts center for everything ranging from stand-up comedians to opera. The small but historic Albert Whitted Airport is a favorite for recreational pilots and St. Pete is widely considered a golfer’s paradise. Sunken Gardens is a vintage roadside attraction turned beautiful botanical garden.
All of these offerings are within a mile or two of the St. Pete Municipal Marina. When it comes to The ‘Burg, it’s not ‘what is there to do?’ it’s ‘what do you want to do?’. A great resource is I Love the Burg, a plugged-in blog run by prominent locals.
2. White Sand Beaches
St. Pete is known for its award-winning white sand beaches even more than its lively downtown. The big draws are the vacation-oriented St. Pete and Pass-a-Grille beaches about 10 miles overland to the west. Protected, undeveloped Fort De Soto Park on Mullet Key are another fiveish miles west-southwest from downtown. For a visiting boater based out of the St. Pete Municipal Marina, you can either cruise over there to check it out on your own hull or take conventional road travel.
I’d stress some caution for the boats that aren’t shallow draft powerboats. The waters there are laced with sandbars and there’s the Pinellas Bayway Bridge to consider for masts. The currents along the shore can be strong too, annoying for anchoring setups. But if you have a nice, fast tender and want to do a picnic for two, zipping from the St. Pete Waterfront to beach up on a quiet stretch of Fort De Soto or Shell Key Preserve on a nice day could be paradise.
The land options may ultimately be less stressful. Other than renting a car, there is a beach bus from downtown St. Pete to Pass-a-Grille. Additionally, a terminus of the Pinellas Bike Trail starts right on Demens Landing. Largely built upon a retired railroad line, the protected bike trail zips west most of the way to St. Pete Beach before turning north all the way to Tarpon Springs. Depending on when you turn off the bike trail, you could be sipping a mojito at the Don Cesar (another historic Spanish-style hotel) on St. Pete Beach in an hour or so.
3. On-Water Sights
Instead of using one’s boat to check out the mainstream beaches, a skipper could explore sights less easily accessed. Egmont Key National Wildlife Refuge and the smaller Passage Key National Wildlife Refuge can be tempting islands to explore. The same words of caution about sandbars and shore currents apply, but there are more opportunities and space to operate. Cruising under the Sunshine Skyway Bridge, the tallest bridge in Florida, is also a cool notch in your boater’s cap.
Despite being a populated area, Tampa Bay is teeming with interesting wildlife. Curious bottlenose dolphins are common and the waters are a magnet for tarpon. The lucky may see a dreamlike school, called a “fever”, of cow nosed rays. Of course, Tampa Bay is known for its manatees and go-fast boaters should always be on the lookout for their slow-moving gray backs and mind manatee-related markers. These are also bull shark and giant hammerhead waters, so be warned.
For true manatee fans, the TECO Manatee Viewing Center is an interesting admittedly surreal sight. Located across the bay at Apollo Beach, the TECO Big Bend Station is a major coal fired power plant that vents a large amount of warm water. During the chilly winter months, the warm water serves as a sort of massive communal bonfire for the local manatees to keep warm. Despite what their round physiques suggest, these gentle giants do not store blubber for insulation rather that body mass mostly contains their supersized, buoyant lungs. Think of them as living aquatic blimps. In fact, when the water reaches 65 degrees or less, manatees begin to suffer frostbite and even die. I lived in the area in 2010 during an unusual winter cold snap—and even a St. Pete snow flurry!—that contributed to a state record breaking 500 estimated manatee deaths due to cold exposure that winter. But the survivors huddled around the Apollo Beach TECO power plant and the observation center in their hundreds if not thousands. A truly Tampa Bay only sight.
If all plans fail, even getting out on the bay and bopping around in the sun without a plan is highly recommended.
4. Note on Tampa
Tampa is worth a mention. For one, if you time your boating visit when the MacDill Air Force Base is throwing its annual air show, you absolutely should get out on the water to see it. I’ll never forget being fully underway on a dual outboard while buzzed by a formation of fighter jets. More practically, the Tampa International Airport is a useful resource for swapping out crew, flying in family, or zipping back to the office to take care of something before resuming the ICW Loop. The airport is a 40ish minute taxi ride from St. Pete.
Ybor City of Tampa can be a fun visit in its own right. The district leans into its history as “Cigar City” back when mostly Cuban immigrants worked as cigar rollers in the industry at its heyday. There’s ongoing debate as to whether Ybor City is the birthplace of the modern Cuban sandwich, a contested claim by Key West and Cuba itself. At the very least, that era in Tampa popularized the iconic sandwich that stands as the state’s answer to the Philly Cheesesteak of Philadelphia or Reuben of New York City.
5. Storm Season Observations (Not Advice)
Boaters will find not only a welcoming, warm, sandy bottom port but some reprieve from the summer stormy season. Nowhere in Florida is completely safe from hurricanes during the season from June through November, but Tampa Bay has a reputation for dodging direct hits from storms. The last major storm to hit Tampa Bay directly was the historic Tarpon Springs Hurricane of 1921, although in 2024 three named storms came close enough to cause damage in places.
No, the sophisticated models and most state sanctioned authorities do not agree with this local take. According to them, projected storm surges are poised to wipe the whole place out on a regularly basis. But whether it’s the bathymetry of the Gulf of America redirecting the storms or that Tampa Bay is in a favorable location on the edge of the Atlantic’s subtropical high-pressure system—or other explanation one of my former oceanography professors tried to explain over beers—it does seem to be a safer place for boaters during the season than say The Keys. Even the near-direct hit of category 3 hurricane Milton last year was strangely vindicating to the local take. The 120-mph winds that hit Siesta Key within 20 miles of the entrance to Tampa Bay yielded almost none of the projected storm surge or widespread boat damage in St. Pete. In fact, area man Joseph Malinowksi went viral as “Lieutenant Dan” for refusing to leave his sailboat. He rode out Milton and was fine. Don’t take this information as advice, but this is what they say in the world.
6. Eats and Drinks
St. Petersburg and Tampa Bay area is a sprawling metropolis home to just about any cuisine and libation you could want. But in the spirit of offering you dear reader uniquely St. Pete recommendations, I start with the beloved Mazzaro’s Italian Market. While a bit far for a walk from the downtown drag, this place is not only a great place to reprovision for extended cruising, but also an incredible deli. Get the muffaletta, it won’t disappoint.
Another beloved local place that’s been around forever is Ted Peters Famous Smoked Fish about a mile off the northern end of St. Pete Beach. This cash only, no frills fish smokehouse has to be the gold standard of how to do smoked mullet and Spanish mackerel right. If you need a coffee pick-me-up, Florida’s largest coffee chain Kahwa Coffee started in St. Pete in 2006. There’s a strong, vibrant “Buy Local” pride in St. Pete and it shows.
One phenomenon that took off over the last decade or so is the craft brewing scene. One can walk from the municipal marina to St. Pete Brewing Company and Cycle Brewing and venture west for about a mile to Grand Central Brewhouse and Bayboro Brewing Co., hitting half a dozen or so breweries along the way including a favorite of mine—3 Daughters Brewing. As a Portland, Oregon raised guy, I feel right at home.
Wandering around the St. Petersburg Saturday Morning Market is a culinary treat and good chance to pick up local produce. The food vendor scene shouldn’t disappoint whether you’re after Southern-style soul food or healthy fresh squeezed citrus juices. Live music abounds. Taking in the vibe and buying local won’t lead you astray. Soak in the sun. Live the lore. Kedge off a key. All of it is just another sunset scene for The Burg.
