Boat Tours Near Hyatt Regency Coconut Point, Bonita Springs

Because it’s a different kind of water, not a bigger helping of the same. Estero Bay is a fine, productive back bay, and the barrier islands in front of it are real beaches — we’re not going to pretend otherwise. What they also have is causeways, parking lots and houses, which is exactly what makes them convenient. South of Naples the coast changes: the Ten Thousand Islands are hundreds of mangrove keys you cannot drive to, with no addresses, no seawalls, and shell beaches nobody rakes. If you want a couple of hours that feel like a different state, that’s what the drive buys. If you don’t, stay put — you’re already somewhere good.

Figure about thirty to forty minutes to Naples Bay Resort & Marina at 1500 5th Avenue South, either straight down US-41 or via I-75 and back west. That’s an estimate rather than a promise — in-season traffic through North Naples can add real time — so run it from your own address before you leave. And no, we don’t do hotel pickup, here or anywhere. We depart from our slip at the marina, we send the exact slip location once you’ve booked, and we have no affiliation or arrangement with the Hyatt Regency Coconut Point. We’re a family-owned, captain-led boat company that a lot of Bonita Springs guests happen to drive down to.

Depends what you drove for. If you want the wilderness contrast this page is built on, take a beach-and-island run or a shelling trip — those get you out through Gordon Pass to boat-only sand like Keewaydin, which is the whole point. If you’re bringing a group, a private charter is the honest best value once you’ve committed to the miles: your own boat, your own route, and no watching the clock for strangers. Families with young kids often do best on a dolphin cruise, which is shorter and stays in calmer bay water. And if you’d rather end the day with color over the Gulf, book a late-afternoon sunset cruise and eat downtown before heading north.

Both work, and they’re different days. Our Naples shelling runs head out through Gordon Pass to the islands off that end of the bay, and they fit inside a normal morning — leave Bonita Springs after breakfast, be back for a late lunch. Shelling starts at $125 per adult and $90 per child. The full wild-island version leaves from our other dock, San Marco Marina at 604 East Palm Avenue in Goodland, on the southeast tip of Marco Island. That’s a longer haul from you, and it only makes sense if you want to give the whole day to the Ten Thousand Islands. There’s no peak season for shelling here — winter brings morning low tides, summer brings evening ones, and both produce.

Empty shells only. Collier and Lee County both prohibit taking live shells, live sand dollars and live starfish, so the rule on our boats is simple: flip it, check it, and if anybody’s home it goes back in the water. What washes up out there is genuine variety — lightning whelks, which are the left-handed ones, fighting conchs, olives, cockles, murex, and now and then a horse conch, which is the Florida state shell. The local sand dollar is the keyhole urchin, the flat one with the five slots. A junonia is the holy grail and we won’t pretend otherwise: it lives in deep water and only turns up after a storm pushes it in.

Dolphins, often. Bottlenose live in Naples Bay, Gordon Pass and the islands south year-round, and they regularly surface alongside the boat or ride the wake — a real chance most trips, never a guarantee, because they’re wild animals keeping their own schedule. Be a little suspicious of anyone who promises otherwise. Manatees come with an extra wrinkle: they gather in warmer backwater when the Gulf drops below about 68 degrees, roughly November through March, and near Naples they stay fairly spread out rather than piling into one spring the way they do up in Crystal River. Birds are the dependable part — ospreys, herons, pelicans and, on the right flat, a roseate spoonbill.