Florida Gulf Coast Quick Reference Cruising Guide
Dry Tortugas to Mobile, AL
Florida Gulf Coast Quick Reference Cruising Guide
Florida Gulf Coast Quick Reference Cruising Guide
Dry Tortugas to Mobile, AL
Stop hunting through chapters and apps. Find a protected anchorage, the next fuel, or the right bridge in seconds.
Spiral Bound+PDF Bundle: Get both and we'll take 50% off the PDF
Also available for Kindle
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We built this guide around what you need every day.
But we didn't just include what we were always hunting for ourselves. Nope, we asked more than 100 other cruisers what they needed, and how they wanted it laid out.
Here's what they said:
With our guides, you'll never pore over pages of text, looking for one elusive word like "laundry" or "propane."
Go to the Right Section
Tabs help you find what you need—fuel, anchorages, bridges, or facilities.
Find Your Location
By town/island name, from Dry Tortugas north to Big Bend, then west to Mobile
Check the Columns
Look for details like wind protection, bridge heights, or marina services.
Second, include the stuff that's hard to find anywhere else
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- Anchorages by protection direction (which way you're covered from tonight's wind)
- Storm holes (where to hide when a front's coming)
- Dog walking at each anchorage
- Haulouts include max. beam, whether DIY and stayaboard allowed, and other restrictions
Third, include all the rest of it too!
CATEGORIES
ANCHORAGES
FREE DOCKS
BRIDGES
SERVICES
NAV ALERTS
HAULOUTS
INLETS
Fourth, make sure it's accurate and current
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A banner on the cover tells you exactly when the information was last confirmed.
Every entry is verified through:
- Personal cruising experience
- Phone calls to marinas, boatyards, stores, and bridge tenders
- Charts, Local Notices to Mariners, and Army Corps of Engineers surveys
- Company websites
Reports from other boaters are only added if we can independently verify the information. We reconfirm every bit of information for every edition.
Fifth, cover the whole Florida Gulf Coast
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- The Dry Tortugas and Fort Jefferson east to Key West.
- Then through southwest Florida
- Around the entire Big Bend
- And west to Mobile, Alabama
- Including the Gulf ICW
Cruise one section of it, run up and back, or do the whole coast, maybe as part of America's Great Loop.
Sixth, let me choose how I get it: paper or digital
Every format has the same information — choose how you want to carry it.
- Spiral-Bound Print: 8.5" x 5.5" lay-flat design with heavyweight paper
- PDF: Download instantly, no need for a shipping address, best on tablet or computer (not phone)
- Kindle: print replica, only for use with the Kindle app (cannot be used with Kindle e-readers) on a tablet or computer, not phone
- Print+PDF Combo: want a paper copy but also need it now? Get both, and the PDF is half off as a bundle.
Spiral-bound
Kindle
Print + PDF Combo
Get it instantly
No shipping address needed
Clickable links for marina websites and phone numbers
unreliable
Easy to use in sunlight
No power needed
Just prefer paper
Frequently Asked Questions
Does this guide cover the Florida Keys?
It covers the Dry Tortugas and Key West, then up Florida's Gulf Coast, around the Big Bend, and west to Mobile, Alabama.
It does not cover the Keys chain from Key Largo to Key West — that's our separate Florida Keys guide.
How current is the information?
This is the July 2025 edition. Every entry is reconfirmed for each edition through personal cruising, phone calls to marinas and bridge tenders, charts, and boater reports, and a dated banner on the cover tells you when it was last confirmed.
Do I still need other cruising guides?
For the practical decisions — anchorages, fuel, docks, bridges, and services — this guide plus your chartplotter or nav app are all you really need. Other cruising guides are worth carrying if you want aerial photos, town history, and sightseeing, but you won't be flipping through them to find a laundromat or a pumpout.
Will it work with my navigation app?
Yes. Every anchorage is listed by its Active Captain name, which overlays on Garmin, Navionics, Aqua Map, and most other apps, so you can search the exact name and pull the spot up on your own screen, regardless of whether you're using the print, PDF, or Kindle version.
Do you have an app?
We asked cruisers about this, and what they wanted was the option of a digital format that's instant, familiar, and just works, not one more app to manage.
So that's what we built: PDF and Kindle versions. Both are available right after you buy, and once it's on your device, it's yours. No subscription, no login, no signal required, and nothing to update at a marina with one bar. It's technology you already know how to use, and you can share the PDF with anyone else aboard.
Does it have charts or chartlets?
No, by design. Clean tables are what make it fast to scan, and it's built to ride alongside your charts rather than reproduce them.
Is it waterproof?
No. It's printed on rugged, glare-free, lay-flat heavyweight paper built for life aboard, but it isn't waterproof.
There's only one ad in the whole book?
Just one — a 20% discount on Aqua Map charts, our favorite navigation app. Nothing else interrupts the reference.
Real Cruisers Made This Guide
These guides started as an end-of-day conversation over Painkillers at the Annapolis Boat Show, where a few of us on The Boat Galley team realized we were each spending hours every night flipping through guides, apps, and notes just to build the next day's list of fuel stops, anchorages, pumpouts, and bridges.
Someone joked that whoever left first should just send their list to everyone else, and then we stopped laughing: why wasn't there already a guide organized around what cruisers actually need to find?
Larry created a rough draft of the first one, we all saw how it gave us back our evenings for fun instead of list-making, and we haven't stopped since! Our guides now cover six geographic areas, each packed with nearly three times the information of that first draft.
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I'm Larry Webber, the creator of all of The Boat Galley's Quick Reference Guides. I've been a full-time singlehanded cruiser for 8 years.
Nothing bothers me more than making plans and having them fall apart because the information I was counting on was out of date, so I re-verify everything in each guide, not just the entries someone tells me have changed. Thank goodness for unlimited phone plans!
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I'm Carolyn Shearlock, founder of The Boat Galley and a 17-year liveaboard cruiser.
At our cruiser meet-ups I'm always listening for what else cruisers wish they could find. Then, I work with Larry and Julie to see how we can make it come true. I also coordinate all the tech that goes into getting the guides printed, orders fulfilled, downloads triggered, and handle all customer support.
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I'm Julie Tijerina, the graphic designer who figures out how to pack all this information into tables that are truly useful and still easy to read.
I lived aboard and cruised for 8 years myself, so I know what cruisers need and which details belong together. Every new edition is a fresh challenge as we add more and more.
Curious about our story and what drives us? Learn more about us here.
At The Boat Galley, we have one mission: to help you cruise with confidence.
As liveaboard cruisers, we understand the challenges and questions that come with boat life. That’s why we create practical products and courses designed to tackle the same issues we’ve faced ourselves—making your life on the water easier, safer, and more enjoyable.
Try our products and courses for yourself. If they don’t make your boat life better, use our 90-day FREE no-hassle return guarantee.
Designed in the USA; printed in the USA. Minimal packaging and tough enough to handle life on a boat.
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