There's a reason people put up with the traffic, the insurance, and the September humidity down here in South Florida. It's this: you can leave the dock at ten, be knee-deep on a sandbar with a cooler by noon, and be tied up at a raw bar eating stone crab by four — without ever touching a car key.
South Florida does the boat day better than anywhere in the country. Here's where to go, when to show up, and what the guidebooks won't tell you about keeping your running gear intact while you do it. If you are down here for a boating day, certainly feel free to stop in the offices of Deep Blue Yacht Supply.
This is a list of our favorite sandbars and restaurants in South Florida. Reach out to Deep Blue Yacht Supply if you need any sandbar or dining recommendations.
The Sandbars
Nixon Sandbar - Key Biscayne
Named for the nearby Nixon-era compound and sitting just west of Hurricane Harbour off Key Biscayne, Nixon is the Miami sandbar most locals default to. Clear water, downtown skyline in the background, and a social scene that's lively without being complete chaos. Charter boats out of Miami run here constantly, so weekends fill up fast.
Go when: Weekday mornings if you want space. Weekend afternoons if you want the scene.
Bear Cut - Crandon Park, Key Biscayne
The local's alternative. Smaller, quieter, and part of Crandon Park, with reefs and wrecks nearby worth a snorkel. This is the one to pick when you've got kids aboard or you're not in the mood for 200 boats worth of competing sound systems.
Haulover Sandbar - Biscayne Bay
For years this was the ultimate sandbar in South Florida - the one with the floating food boats delivering burgers and tacos by kayak. Be aware that the bar has been significantly changed by dredging tied to Bal Harbour beach renourishment, and sand continues to shift on the south side of the cut. The scene hasn't disappeared, but it isn't what it was five years ago. Check recent conditions and local chatter before you plan the whole day around it.
Also worth knowing: Haulover Cut is one of the most heavily patrolled stretches of water in Miami-Dade, and the inlet itself throws a serious sea when the wind opposes the tide. Respect it, there are also many wild videos out there from Haulover.
Lake Boca Raton - Boca Raton
Tucked just inside the Boca Inlet, Lake Boca is a wide, protected basin with a knee-deep bar and a wall of condos and waterfront homes on either side. It's the site of the notorious spring Boca Bash, which draws thousands and a correspondingly heavy law enforcement presence.
Deep Blue Yacht Supply Local trick: Anchor toward deeper water on the north end and swim or paddle in. Boats that nose all the way onto the bar early get boxed in by later arrivals and can't leave until the crowd thins.
Peanut Island - Riviera Beach / Lake Worth Lagoon
The most complete destination on this list. Eighty acres of wooded island in the middle of the Lake Worth Lagoon with a sandbar off the end, plus something nearly every other sandbar lacks: actual infrastructure. Restrooms, showers, picnic areas, a dock, walking paths, a museum, and the Kennedy-era fallout shelter. The snorkel lagoon holds tropical fish, turtles, and the occasional manatee, and the Phil Foster Park underwater trail near the Blue Heron Bridge is right there.
Go when: Weekdays, or early on holiday weekends. It gets loaded.
Jupiter Sandbar (Loxahatchee River Sandbar) - Jupiter
Roughly 26°56.9′ N, 80°06.0′ W, at the mouth of the Loxahatchee where it meets the Intracoastal, within sight of the Jupiter Inlet Lighthouse. Soft sand bottom, inches-deep water at low tide, and a genuinely pretty setting. Locals will tell you the west end skews family and the east end skews rowdy - pick accordingly.
Go when: About three hours before low tide, when the sand starts coming up.
Beer Can Island - Boynton Beach
A man-made spoil island near the Boynton Inlet that earned its name honestly and is now a bird sanctuary. The sandbar alongside it goes to about six inches at low tide, and the ocean-bound traffic through the inlet makes for good entertainment. Quieter than Lake Boca, closer to a locals' spot.
Whale Harbor / Islamorada Sandbar - Florida Keys
Worth the run if you've got the range. Around MM 84 on the Atlantic side, less than a mile offshore, with the kind of water clarity you don't get north of the Keys. Weekends draw a mixed fleet of center consoles and larger boats. Just remember you're operating inside the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary, where seagrass and coral protections are enforced seriously.
Boat-In Restaurants
Fort Lauderdale alone has more than 300 miles of navigable waterway, and a good chunk of the dining scene is built around people arriving by water. A few standouts:
Broward County
Shooters Waterfront - 3033 NE 32nd Ave, Fort Lauderdale The big one. Over 350 feet of private dock on the Intracoastal, three bars, and a menu broad enough that nobody in your group complains. There's even a dog menu. Brunch here is a South Florida institution.
Boatyard - 1555 SE 17th St, Fort Lauderdale Free dockage for restaurant customers with boats up to 75 feet, but dock-and-dine slots are reservable - call ahead rather than showing up hoping. Raw bar, wood-fired steaks, daily catch, and a dockside fire pit for happy hour.
15th Street Fisheries - 1900 SE 15th St, Fort Lauderdale Inside Lauderdale Marina on the Stranahan. Two stories, unpretentious, excellent conch chowder — and the dockside tarpon feeding is the reason kids remember the trip. Dockage is first-come, first-served.
Kaluz - 3300 E Commercial Blvd, Fort Lauderdale About 180 feet of dock space on the ICW, first-come. More polished than the rest of this list without being stuffy. Good call for a dinner that isn't in flip-flops.
Southport Raw Bar - 1536 Cordova Rd, Fort Lauderdale The oldest raw bar in town, free dockage, no pretense. Oysters, king crab, cold beer, done.
Coconuts - 429 Seabreeze Blvd, Fort Lauderdale Steps from Las Olas Beach, famous for its garlicky "Scoobies" crab claws. Dock space is limited — call before you commit.
Le Tub - Hollywood, on the Intracoastal A ramshackle former gas station covered in salvaged bathtubs that happens to serve a sirloin burger GQ once called the best in America. There is nothing else like it. Easy dockage, zero attitude. Le Tub gets the award for Deep Blue Yacht Supply's favorite burger.
Pier Sixty-Six / Grille 66 - 2301 SE 17th St, Fort Lauderdale The rebuilt resort has multiple dining concepts and marina dockage for dock-and-dine guests, but it's reservation-required and priced by the foot. Worth it for an occasion.
Miami-Dade
Seaspice - Miami River Upscale, yacht-crowd favorite, full-service marina alongside. Call ahead for a slip, especially on weekends.
Casablanca on the Bay - 1717 N Bayshore Dr Next to Sea Isle Marina, handles boats up to 110 feet, and has a fuel stop on site. Biscayne Bay views and a straightforward seafood menu.
Lido Bayside Grill - The Standard, Belle Isle Mediterranean-leaning, dockage for boats up to about 40 feet, and one of the better sunset seats on the bay.
Regatta Grove - Regatta Harbour, Coconut Grove Newer, family-friendly, and an easy stop if you're already working the Grove waterfront.
Palm Beach County
Old Key Lime House - Lantana Historic building, what's billed as the largest tiki bar in South Florida, an award-winning key lime pie, and sunsets that earn the drive.
Banana Boat - Boynton Beach Roughly 250 feet of dockage, covered patio, rum runners, burgers, and a nonstop parade of boat traffic to watch.
Two Georges Waterfront Grille - Boynton Beach Classic Florida waterfront: charter boats in the morning, seafood and a sports bar in the afternoon.
Sailfish Marina - Palm Beach Shores Fresh seafood, tropical drinks, and a front-row view of the sportfish fleet coming and going through the Lake Worth Inlet.
Tiki 52 - near Peanut Island Convenient stop just north of the sandbar. Full bar, wide menu, and they'll cook your catch.
Before You Go: The Practical Stuff
Dockage policies change constantly. Free today, fee tomorrow; first-come at lunch, reservation-only at dinner. Call ahead or hail the restaurant on VHF — most monitor 16 and will switch you to a working channel. Know your beam and draft before you ask.
Learn the tide, not just the time. Most sandbars on this list are best about two to three hours before low tide. Show up at the wrong stage and you'll either find nothing to stand on or find yourself sitting on the bottom for six hours.
Watch the zones. South Florida is dense with idle-speed, no-wake, and manatee protection zones, and FWC patrols them hard on weekends. Anchoring in seagrass is a real violation with real fines — look for sand, not grass.
Have a designated boat operator. BUI enforcement at Lake Boca, Haulover, and Peanut Island on a holiday weekend is not a rumor.
Pack it in, pack it out. Sandbar access has been restricted in Florida before, and litter is the fastest way to make that happen again.
Protecting Your Running Gear on a Sandbar Day
Here's the part most sandbar guides skip, and it's the part that shows up on our phones every Monday morning.
Shallow water is hard on everything below the waterline. A few habits that save real money:
- Trim up early and approach slow. Most sandbar prop damage happens in the last thirty feet, not out in the channel. Come in on plane-off, trimmed up, with someone on the bow watching the bottom.
- Never run in gear once you're in sand. Spinning a prop in a foot of water sandblasts the blades, pulls grit through the pump, and can score a shaft or seal. Kill the engine and push off by hand.
- Don't beach an outboard or sterndrive with the lower unit down. Even soft sand will chew a skeg, and a hard bottom will finish the job.
- Check the water pump after a shallow day. Sand and silt ingestion is the number one cause of impeller failure in boats that spend weekends on bars. If your telltale looks weak, deal with it before the next trip, not after.
- Inspect blades and cutless bearings seasonally. A slightly bent blade or a worn bearing shows up first as vibration. Vibration is what turns a $200 problem into a $2,000 problem - bent shafts, failed seals, damaged struts.
- Watch your zincs. Warm South Florida water, lots of shore power, lots of dissimilar metals. Anodes are the cheapest insurance on your boat and the easiest thing to forget.
When Something Does Get Dinged
Every boater on this coast eventually finds a bar that wasn't on the chart, or comes off one with a new vibration. It happens, and it's fixable.
Deep Blue Yacht Supply has been helping South Florida boaters - and boaters worldwide — get the right running gear since 2006. Propellers, cutless bearings, shafts, zinc anodes, and marine hardware from Michigan Wheel, SOLAS, Duramax, Zimar, Buck Algonquin, and more, with a team carrying over a century of combined experience in marine propulsion.
We'll size a prop off your engine specs or an OEM part number free of charge, and we'll answer the question whether or not you buy anything. That's been the deal since day one.
Have a question about your setup? Call us at (800) 454-6960 or reach out through the site. Then go enjoy the sandbar.