At high tide with your boat doing 100 you can go almost anywhere you want at low tide in some of the same places you would hit bottom. South of Key biscayne are the channels where there are alternating deep and shallow areas, in the middle of the bay there is nothing to worry about except featherbed bank that is marked, but again at high tide you could fly over it. The Garmin chart is pretty accurate so if you follow that you will be safe. Have a look at the area on google earth and you will get a better idea.

I'm not going to get into the East Coast v West Coast thing because that's gotten old, my take is the East Coast and KW is fun and a great place to "VISIT", but if you're looking for a Family environment the West Coast seems the place to be, tons of places to safely boat up and down the Gulf.

Like I said previously, before you do anything permanently, the smart thing to do would be to make a few trips down and check both sides out and see which fits you, your boat and your families needs, that way you will have made the best decision and won't have to do it a second time............please no slammin', this is just my opinion.

100 % agree with Joey, I have been living here on the Gulf Coast for 12 years, definitely a slower pace than the east coast. But I like how forgiving the water is, by that I mean it's all sand over here. So even if you "stick" your boat minimal or no damage occurs due to boating error. Just my 2 cents, add a bus ticket to it and you can get out of town then......good luck to you I am sure you will enjoy both coasts, I chose this coast because of family requirements.

Yup.

I have been in FL my whole life and you couldn't pay me to live in Southern East coast of FL. That's a place I like to visit and nothing more. I enjoy my life over here and on this coast much more.

That's the plan. Boat on the east side until the kids are out of the house then I'm buying a place on the west side.

Right now I'm all about just getting there. From KC, the nonstop flights are to Ft. Lauderdale. I can leave in the morning and be boating by noon. When I have time to spend weeks at a time in the south then it won't matter.

Not sure how far for you but when I went to LOTO this year we flew into Branson and drove over. From there they offer direct flights to St.pete/Clearwater for very fair prices. I keep my boat here with "Boating37" (Jamie) and it is a very nice place to store at for sure. So if you are looking to visit this area try going that way bud.

I'm 3.5 hours from LOTO, 5 hours from Branson
40 minutes from Kansas City Airport.
Cheap flights on my favorite airline - Southwest.

Then in that case ya...go KC for sure. Much easier to to get in and out of.

I think SWA has a hub in KCI so they should have lots of flights to all the West Coast cities, (i.e.Sarasota, Tampa, Ft. Myers) at least they did when we flew out of KCI when we lived at LOTO fulltime.

You guys convinced me. I'll be flying in late Thursday night and splashing Friday morning in Pompano.
Heading to Lauderdale for lunch with a friend and then down to Miami for the weekend.
The beauty of having a V bottom is that I can still run in the ocean even if it's at a slower clip than I'd like.