Palma Sola Causeway Ramp

This is the free launch locals use on the bayside causeway that carries Manatee Avenue out toward Anna Maria Island. You park right along the road, often a few steps from the water, and slide a board into Palma Sola Bay, a shallow, sheltered embayment that stays calm close in even when the Gulf side is churning. The bay is the appeal: warm, grassy-bottomed flats, dolphins working the shallows, and a wide-open sunset straight down the water. It is a no-frills, Old Florida kind of place, the sort of spot where families spread out for a cookout, dogs splash in the shallows, and you might even share the water with the horseback-riding outfit that wades its horses chest-deep off the causeway. Two honest notes: the single-lane ramp and its handful of trailer spots fill up fast on a nice weekend, so beat nine o'clock, and the bay is shallow enough that a hard low tide leaves you walking your fins out past the grass before you can paddle.

Where do I park, and is it free?

Cost

Free

Parking

Ample

Restrooms

yes

Free causeway ramp with roadside parking on protected Palma Sola Bay.

How clear is the water?

Sheltered bay water.

What will I see?

• Manatees move into Palma Sola Bay's warmer shallows through the cold months
• Dolphins and their calves feed across the shallow bay flats year-round
• Wading birds along the mangrove edges; sea turtles nest on the bay's west side near the Sound

What's the fishing like?

Sheltered bay: trout and redfish on the grass flats, snook along the mangroves, sheepshead on the causeway rocks.

How do I share the water here?

The bottom you paddle over here is seagrass, the same grass the manatees feed on and the nursery that keeps the bay's fish and water clear. It is fragile enough that the county has moved to regulate the horseback outfits that churn it up, so do your part: launch and land off the grass at low tide instead of dragging across it, and give any feeding manatee or resting flock of birds a wide, quiet arc.