Guide
Do You Need a Boat on Marco Island?
You do not need to own one or hire one. You do need to get on one, because everything that makes this island different from any other Gulf resort is offshore of it.
7 min read
Wyatt Coombs
Boating & Fishing Editor
Beat: Boat Tours, Ten Thousand Islands, Fishing Charters
Wyatt ran charters out of Goodland before he wrote about them and still reads this coast by the tide rather than the calendar. He covers rentals, guides, the passes and the backcountry, and he is blunt about shoal water, idle zones and boats sold as something they are not. If the wind is wrong, he will tell you to go tomorrow.
3 guides · 3 news posts
Last updatedWyatt's most recent update to this site was .
Long-form
Guides by Wyatt Coombs
Reported guides to Marco Island, each with its own publication and last-updated date.
Guide
Fishing Marco Island: Backcountry, Beach and Offshore
FeaturedThe estuary starts ten minutes from the dock and the good bottom fishing is thirty miles out. Understand that ratio and you will book the right boat.
8 min read
Guide
Boating the Ten Thousand Islands from Marco
FeaturedMarco is the largest of the Ten Thousand Islands and the northern door into them. Behind the condominium towers is a mangrove labyrinth where a wrong turn on a falling tide costs you six hours.
10 min read
News desk
News under Wyatt Coombs's byline
Shorter, dated pieces about what is changing in Marco Island.
How this was written. News published under Wyatt Coombs's byline was drafted by machine from primary sources — operator notices, government and municipal releases, published schedules — and every factual claim in it was matched to one of those sources before it published. A Marco Island Guide editor can change or pull any of it. Our editorial standards.
Seasonal
Stone Crab Season Opens in October, and Goodland Is Where It Lands
One claw, a live crab returned to the water, and a season that sets the rhythm of the working docks at the wrong end of the island.
Reopening
Water Access After Ian: The Ramp Is Back, One Boardwalk Is Not
Three years of rebuilding, one ramp back in service, and a nature boardwalk still shut. Check before you drive to any of it.
Travel alert
A Winter Front Will Cancel Your Boat and Improve Your Shelling
Everyone plans around hurricanes. Far more visitors lose a day to the thing that arrives every fortnight between November and March and looks like perfect weather.