Smorgasboat of Boot Key Harbor / Sunset, and Harbor tours. Friendly & reliable operators of Clean & Quiet Electric Boats
{ Safety is our first concern ! Then the environment ! }

ISLAMORADA

Holiday Isle Beach - Holiday Isle beach is located in the Holiday Isle complex, which includes hotels, restaurants , tiki bars , and a charter fishing fleet. Holiday Isle policy "You don't have to stay here to play here" means that the beach and pool facilities are open to the public. In addition to the beach and pool there are jet ski and boat rentals. There is also fishing and diving charters as well as a marina

ISLAMORADA

Anne's Beach is great because it's easy to find, easy to reach, and easy to enjoy. It's located at Mile Marker 73.4 on the oceanside and the land is narrow here so you'd have to be asleep to miss the beach. The signs are not large, however, so do keep your eyes peeled for Mile Marker signs if traffic is heavy. Slamming on your brakes for Anne's Beach and causing a pile-up of cars isn't what Anne had in mind. The beach isn't huge and in fact it's incredibly narrow and natural-looking. There's not a ton of parking, but usually enough for those who choose to stop by for a quick dip in the ocean or a rest stop for visitors after clawing their way through Miami traffic. The natural look is exemplified by the presence of lots of mangrove trees growing just behind the sand, among which a boardwalk has been constructed. You can walk through the trees and look out at the ocean, realizing you're part of a perfect tropical scene, letting the tension of everday life melt away from you. It's a great place to decompress and start to relax and enjoy your Florida Keys vacation, if you haven't managed to do so already. Bring a cooler, bring a boxed lunch, becaue there are picnic tables here along the boardwalk. Picnic tables on decks with roofs over them to create a shady place to have lunch and hang out, that is. It's the perfect spot to stop. It is known as a nude beach, so brace yourself, but most people don't take advantage of the situation and keep their clothes on. Hey, it's the Keys, so you might as well. No? Well, you always have the option at Anne's Beach should you change your mind!

Sombrero Beach. Marathon has one of the nicest beaches in the Keys, Sombrero Beac. It's a whole two miles off of Highway One, for starters, so you don't get drive-by traffic as you do on some of the beach spots in the Upper Keys, or even on the main Key West beaches. This gives it a more relaxing, remote and escapist feel than any other beach. It's free, there's plenty of parking, and the facilities are new, spotless, and beautiful. The beach too is spotless and pleasant, and the swimming is good. The sand is deep and soft and invites you do dig in your toes and stay all day long. There are picnic benches, shade areas, a park next door, nice bathrooms, and beautiful views, since it's on the ocean side. The beach juts out so it's surrounded on two sides by water: the south side and the west side. The west side is great for catching the famous Florida Keys Sunsets. To get here, just take a left on Sombrero Beach Road at mile marker 50 and follow it to the end. This beach couldn't be any prettier, cleaner, or easier to get to. The two-mile drive off the Overseas Highway to the beach is a pleasant journey through a dreamland of mansions the neighborhood is as spotless and perfect-looking as the immaculate beach.

If you're riding a bicycle, there's a wide sidewalk/bikepath the whole way from the Overseas Highway to the beach. What could be easier? Bring lunch, bring your dog, your kids, whatever you want for the beach...there is even a playground. The beach is long enough that you can go beach-walking up and down and not get bored or feel like you're walking the same patch of sand over and over. Sombrero Beach curls inward on iteself, east to west, which in the morning and late afternoon makes for fantastic beach pictures when the sun is low.

BAHIA HONDA STATE PARK

Bahia Honda State Park in the Florida Keys has one of the most beautiful beaches in the United States. It's recently been recognized by travel magazines as one of the top ten beaches and has been featured on dozens of magazine covers. What makes this beach stand out from all the rest? You can sum it all up in one word: the view. The beach faces west and looks out over an old section of the Overseas Railway. That means great scenery and beautiful Florida Keys sunsets over the Atlantic Ocean

The beach itself isn't large when you compare it to any beach on the Florida mainland such as Miami Beach or Daytona Beach. It curves around in a crescent shape and swimmers can enjoy a semi-protected lagoon of sorts, although it's not separated from the open water, except for a small jetty on the northern end of the beach. The southern end of the beach is marked by base hill of the old Overseas Railway, and is now covered with palm trees and lush foliage. If you were to go straight out from the beach, going west, you would eventually hit the swift current that moves under the Bahia Honda Bridge. The channel under the bridges at Bahia Honda is very deep, which makes the current stronger than in most channels. When the engineers were working to convert the old Overseas Railway into a highway, construction was difficult because of the strong current and deep waters. They decided to build the road over the railroad and today you can still see the top of the bridge where the cars once drove, fearlessly. It looks like a roller coaster! Swimmers and snorkelers are restricted to the calmer waters of the protected area close to the beach.

There are some pagodas for picnic-goers, right on the beach. You can set up your feast, get access to some shade and spend time on the beach at the same time. On the southern end of the beach, at the base of the old bridge, there's an indoors nature center for visitors. Take the path behind that building and you'll wind up at an old set of concrete stairs leading up the hill that supports the old bridge. Cross over and find more beach, facing the Atlanatic Ocean. This beach is long and narrow, and just as beautiful as the much-photographed beach between the bridges. You can also take a right and walk out onto the old bridge. It stops with a barricade, but if you look down you can sometimes see tarpon and other large fish.

The walk to the Atlantic-side beach will take you past restrooms, changing rooms and a water fountain, good to know since it gets very hot and sunny. You can cut back into the parking lot area at this point, or you can keep walking along more beach facing the ocean.

KEY WEST

Smathers Beach is the largest in Key West, and by that we mean longest. None of the beaches in Key West are deep or broad. They really aren't the main reason most people come to Key West, since they are pretty small, fronted by flats so you have to wade in forever to get to deeper water, and there is a lot of seaweed in their waters, as well. Nevertheless, Smathers Beach is popular and pleasant, and we're proud of it anyway. It's located on the south side of the island, along South Roosevelt Boulevard. Just head for the airport, and the beach begins around where the airport entrance onto South Roosevelt is located.

There was a restoration of Smathers Beach in the year 2000, just in time for Hurricane Wilma, in 2005, to wipe it all out. Wilma took the sidewalk behind the beach, too, as well as the road. But the beach and road are being rebuilt and the vendors and watersports rentals are once again setting up shop every day for your pleasure. Here, you can rent winsurfers, go parasailing, kayaks and rafts, then step across the dune onto the sidewalk for some Italian Ice or a hot dog. Vendors set up in parking spaces along the road all up and down the beach. All this is set against a wall of condos facing the beach. Behind the condos are Salt Ponds, which were once used, in the 1800s, to harvest salt. The water would evaporate from the shallow ponds and the remaining salt was used to preserve food before they had refridgeration.