Beyond LA - Kayaking Fort De Soto Park - Pinellas County, FL

Fort De Soto Park is just south of St Pete Beach and St Petersburg, FL--actually, just past the area called Tierra Verde. It's the kind of place where I'd spend A LOT of time if I lived in the area. We've taken two trips to the Tampa Bay area, and after a beautiful but stormy paddle here in July,2019, we returned to do the same paddle on a much  prettier day in June, 2022. You'll see some dark clouds in some of the pictures below. There was a tropical system developing barely offshore in the Gulf of Mexico. It became Tropical Storm Barry, in fact, and followed us home to New Orleans a few days later. Our 2022 trip as much prettier.

So, this post is about the same route, done two different times. But the reason I say I'd spend a lot of time here is because there so many different paddling options, plus beaches, dog areas, a bicycle lane, nature...more nature.  When you include the Shell Key area north of Bunces Pass, it's easy to see hours of mangrove and sandy beaches and manatees. This trip, as described here, is very close to 8 miles round trip. It is an out-and-back.

Here's a snippet from Google Maps of the overall area:

 And here's a link to the Fort DeSoto County Park website:

Fort DeSoto County Park

There are several launch spots and trip options inside the park, and there are some launch options north of the park if you wanted to paddle into Sawyer Key and up to Shell Key or over to Shell Key Preserve.

For our two trips, we launched near one of the park's kayak rental spots, currently called "Topwater Kayak Outpost", located near the southwest corner of the park, on Anderson Blvd/679.  This is a nice little dirt launch:

Dirt launch - Fort De Soto Park

If you're viewing that link in satellite view, you'll see a small parking area for perhaps 3 or 4 cars, near our little dirt launch spot. On both of our trips, these spots were open and available. There seems to be a lot of parking near the rental shop, so if this small parking area is full, perhaps you can unload your kayak(s) here and then park in the larger area - I just don't know if that's for rental customers only or not. 

As we headed north, at the beginning of our paddle, we passed another dirt launch spot, which also seems to have parking. Here's a link to that from good ol' Google Maps:

2nd dirt kayak launch - Fort De Soto Park 

We love this trip because we paddle through the mangroves, see some manatees, then get a taste of some beaches and areas to get out and walk around, and then eventually over to the edge of the Gulf of Mexico, and a large cove formed by a curved sandbar.  Inside the cove, it should be very easy to beach land and get out and walk along the beaches. On our most recent trip, we were fairly near high tide, so the cove was pretty "floatable" and we were able to paddle almost over to the park's North Beach:

As I mention earlier, we had to deal with stormy weather on our 2019 trip and we could see thunderstorms forming and moving at several points on the horizon. By the time we got out on the northern tip of this sandbar/beach, the sky overhead was getting dark, fast, and the wind was kicking up--so we jumped back in our kayaks and headed back. 

So I guess I should do my usual thing about safety and knowing your limits, and what you should know about this area:

First, there are kayak rental places here, so there are definitely some very beginner friendly areas to paddle here. The mangroves provide good shelter from the wind, and for the first mile or so of this route,there are mangroves on both sides, so it's calm, fairly shallow water. But after you pass De Soto Point and the next mangrove island, you paddle into water that is very exposed to the east, northeast, and north. Wind from those directions can add a lot of energy to this route, so if you're not comfortable with crosswinds and bouncy water, stay close to the shoreline. Closer to the mangroves, the water should be shallower and likely to have thick sea grass, which will absorb some of that energy. 

 

In fact, staying close to the shoreline is the key to this trip if you aren't comfortable in bouncy, breezy water. Then, as you approach and paddle through Bunces Pass after the picnic area, you can expect more energy in the water from any tide movement, and from the wakes of motor boats and jet skis.  I'm pretty sure this entire route offered shallow, grassy water along the shore, so you should be able to stay in safe conditions. Gaps like Bunces Pass offer interesting combinations of wind versus tidal flow versus boat wakes, so just know your skills, check the weather and tides, and use good judgement. And the earlier in the day you go, the less motor traffic you'll see.

Okay--back to paddling:

The particular route I'll describe here starts in the fairly sheltered "Soldier Hole", which makes an "L" through the Mangroves. We follow the "L" north, past De Soto Point into Mullet Key Bayou, and follow the Mangroves on our left north, then northeast, to the point at Bunces Pass.

 

Then we turn left, going west past a picnic area.  Here, the scenery starts to change as you pass some sandy spots and a lovely inlet to your left, more mangroves, and then a larger inlet or small bay where we pulled in and walked around a bit on our 2019 trip. 

 The yellow arrow in the image below is where we pulled over and walked around - keeping a close eye on those storms:

After this small bay, the coastline changes completely as you approach the sandy edges of the Gulf of Mexico:

 

 

After you paddle past those sandy "cliffs" in the picture above, you're entering the opening to the shallow cove on your left, and the top of the curved sandbar directly across from you. The water can get very shallow between the "cliffs" and the top of that sandbar.  You can actually see this in the image below, and that hard left shown in our track is us going around the shallow water so we could cross over to the gulf side. 

This is a really enjoyable part of the trip. You can walk along the upside-down-J-shaped sandbar, wade into the water to cool off, and paddle further down into the cove(depending on water levels). It'd make a great regroup and lunch spot for a group paddle. In 2019, the storms chased us back before we could relax here, but in 2022 we spent a while enjoying this cove.

 
That should be St Pete Beach in the distance (below):

Cooling off in the Gulf of Mexico:

The cove:

After relaxing and enjoying the cove for a while, we just head back the way we came. We started mid-morning, and by the time we headed back, pleasure boat and jet ski traffic was picking up, so we did have some wakes to deal with, but nothing serious, and again, the water is very shallow along the edge of Bunces Pass.

 

We did 2 or 3 other paddles in the area during our 2022 trip, and we definitely wanted to come back to Tierra Verde and explore Sawyer Key and paddle up to Shell Key and the islands and beaches in that area. But we ran out of time. And as I write this post and look at these pictures and at the satellite images of the area in general, I'm already wondering when my next trip to the Tampa Bay Area will be.

By the way, free plug for a great restaurant we visited on our last night. Sea Worthy Fish Bar, in Tierra Verde, was very comfortable and friendly, with amazing food. Go kayaking in Fort DeSoto Park, change clothes, and relax with some amazing food (no--they did not pay me).