Beach Near Sand Key, Florida

 
Launching your Kayak at Sand Key
On the other side of Sand Key, along the intercoastal waterway, is the Clearwater Community Sailing Center where people store and launch their sailboats.  Just to the north of the sailing center is another small white sandy beach.  Unlike the other beaches in the area, this white sandy beach allows you to drive your vehicle on it and park very close to the water's edge.  This is ideal for those transporting and launching kayaks, although the launching of motorized watercraft is not allowed here.  We like to park it this beach and launch our kayaks for a great trip up the inner postal to the uninhabited spoil islands or other lesser known beaches in the area. 

When parking here just remember to account for the tide and don't park too close to the water's edge such that the incoming tide might overcome your vehicle.  As this beach is located fairly close to the channel separating Sand Key from Clearwater Beach, there is often a current in the shallow waters.  Do not allow small children or non swimmers to swim a unsupervised.

Launching a kayak from Sand Key allows you to explore the various beautiful spoil islands that dot the intercoastal waterway.  Launching from this beach is very much like launching your kayak from the Dunedin Causeway.  We're recently kayaked just south of the white sand beach to investigate two of the prettier spoil islands that are well visible from the causeway bridge.  The first looked nothing more than a gigantic sandbar sticking a few feet out of the water with not a single tree growing on it.  We kayaked out to this island in hopes of finding a soft powdery sand beach for the kids to play on.  Our paddling took us directly into a headwind so the journey took longer than we thought.  However, the weather was nice and the scene was beautiful with great views of the Sand Key skyline and there was a large group of small sailboats performing their drills as part of a sailing class nearby.  When we finally did reach this small island we were discouraged to see a makeshift sign stuck to a metal post allegedly from the National Audubon Society claiming this was a bird sanctuary and using words like "no trespassing".  I did not see any birds flying or nesting or otherwise on this island, and as I had mentioned before there were no trees at all.  The signs seemed suspect as I don't recall birds other than penguins and ostriches nesting on the ground, but we heeded the warning and did not disembark the kayak. 

The kids were disappointed, hoping to build giant sand castles and frolic in the shallow waters.  So, we continued paddling to the south towards a another island I could see in the distance that definitely had a half dozen boats moored on its shore and I could definitely see people sitting and walking about the island.  We continue to kayak almost directly into a headwind.  It was actually a quartering headwind such that any time we put down our paddle to rest or to pull out our camera to take more pictures of the pretty scene, the wind would instantly grab the bow of the kayak and whip it around and weathervane us almost 180° off-course. 

 
Lone Tree Sand Bar Island

Lone Tree Sand Bar
This resulted in serious paddling to turn the nose of the kayak back on track and to regain the momentum we had lost.  We finally reached this  island with one lone tree rising out of the white sand.  There were all sorts of people sitting in chairs, and walking around the island including families with kids.  Could this be it, our destination finally reached?  We battled to the west end of this island where it looked like the sandy beach was best in drag your kayak onshore.  Unfortunately, things were not as they seemed.  The beach was nothing more than large crushed shells and the sandy shore and the sandy bottom was more of the same sharp and crushed shells.  This was an accident waiting to happen and which no doubt, one of the kids would probably slice their foot wide open.  To our dismay we decided this was not good and that we would have to leave immediately.  So, after about an hour of almost straight continuous paddling we hopped back on the kayak turned around this time with the wind at our back, and paddled back towards the Sand Key causeway bridge.  Our destination now would be this white sandy beach that sticks out into the channel at the south end of Clearwater Beach island not far from the Shepherds Resort.

South of Clearwater Beach
This Sandy Beach at the southern end of Clearwater Beach island was an interesting place.  This beach although clearly visible from the southernmost avenue there as well as from the causeway overhead, is completely inaccessible from land.  This is because the seawall and coastline adjacent the beach is private and owned by the individual resorts and hotels that form a northern boundary to this beach.  However, the beach itself is a public beach, one that Pinellas County has so graciously allowed the general public to enjoy.  The problem is if you are trying to get to this beach by land, you simply can't unless you are a hotel guest in which case you have access to the hotel's seawall and shore.  Local beachgoers have long solve this problem by traveling to this beach by boat, jet ski, or kayak. 

On this particular day, we arrived by kayak and pulled up on the sandy portion of beach that faces the boat channel between this island and Sand Key.  From here, we got a great view of all of the fancy boats traveling through the channel out into the open gulf.  Additionally, the sand was quite soft, and the shore was a gentle sloping white sand beach with a sandy bottom.  Every now and then a set of waves from passing boats wake would splash up on shore, but nothing out of the ordinary.  Because of the fact that you can only access this beach by boat or kayak, there was no crowd at all.  This place really reminded me of Caladesi Island where many visitors simply sat in their shallow anchored boats and enjoyed the scene while others ventured ashore to set up beach umbrellas and play on the beautiful sand.  We had a great time swimming and playing here and finally kayaked back to sand key at the end of the day. 

After all that kayaking, swimming, and sand castle building, we had built up a considerable appetite and headed to the conveniently located Columbia Restaurant nearby.  The well-known and renowned historic Columbia restaurant is located in downtown Ybor City.  This one is a branch of the Columbia Restaurant that is located right on Sand Key, adjacent the coastal side boardwalk, right on the water.  It was a great end to a great day!

Related Articles:
Kayaking to Caladesi Island, FL
Kayaking with the Manatees at Crystal River
Kayaking at Pass-a-Grill and Shell Key

Related Links:
Pinellas County Blue Ways Site
Pinellas Waterways Online Maps