Travel alert
The Floating Shops at Crab Island Go Home Every Night
- By Grant Ochoa
- Published
- Last updated
- Travel alert
The food boats, slides and floating bars look permanent. They are not, and the arrangements that govern them shape what your day out there is actually like.
UnsplashEverything commercial at Crab Island is a boat. That sounds obvious until you are standing waist-deep in Choctawhatchee Bay looking at what appears to be a snack bar.
Under the arrangements that now govern the sandbar, approved commercial operators may trade there during the day but may not remain anchored overnight. They arrive each morning and return to a commercial marina each evening. The sale of alcohol from a commercial vessel at Crab Island is prohibited. Glass containers are prohibited on the sandbar outright.
Why it matters to a visitor
Plan to bring what you need. Vendor presence varies with the day, the season and the weather. On a quiet Tuesday in May there may be very little trading. On a July Saturday there will be a lot. Either way, bring your own drinking water: there is none out there and captive-audience pricing applies to everything sold from a hull.
Carry cash as well as cards. Mobile signal over the bar is patchy and card readers fail.
Nothing is open early or late. The commercial day at Crab Island is bracketed by the boats' own runs to and from the marina, so the first and last hours on the sandbar are the quiet, uncommercial ones. Many locals consider those the best hours of the day.
The rules that apply to you, not the vendors
The same day out is governed by several things that are enforced: a properly fitted life jacket for every person aboard, worn continuously by children under six on vessels under 26 feet while under way; Florida's Boating Safety Education Identification Card for any operator whose birth date falls on or after 1 January 1988 and who is driving 10 horsepower or more; no glass; and no anchoring in the marked navigation channel, which carries the Destin charter fleet past the bar to East Pass.
Boating under the influence is policed on this water the way drink-driving is on the road, and holiday weekends are when it is policed hardest.
Vendor approvals and county arrangements at Crab Island have been revised repeatedly over the past several years. Check the current position with Okaloosa County before planning a day around a particular service.
SourcingSummarised from reporting on Okaloosa County's commercial vendor arrangements at Crab Island, including the requirement that approved operators harbour at a commercial location overnight and the prohibition on alcohol sales from commercial vessels, together with Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission boating safety requirements. Vendor approvals and county rules here have changed repeatedly; confirm the current position with the county before relying on any service being present.
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Who reported this
Grant Ochoa
Boating & Fishing Editor
Grant crewed on Destin harbour boats before he wrote about them and still reads East Pass by the tide rather than the calendar. He covers Crab Island access, pontoon rentals, shuttles and charters, and he is blunt about shoal water, crowded anchorages and boats advertised as something they are not. If the wind is wrong, he tells you to go tomorrow.
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