The basin in front of Bayfront Park in Sarasota. The city made it an official mooring (fee) a few years ago. Most were nice sailboats who stayed put but the rift raft moved outside the mooring field and created a floating trailer park clogging up that part bay.

yep same thing in fort meyers beach. Just pushed the dirtbags further back into the mangroves.

I’ve been a yachting guy for 35 years down in Florida and I am all about anchor rights but than we get the tent city scum that ruin it for everyone.

Biggest worry during any little blow is the unattended junk boats breaking free or dragging down on you to your death.

The other issue with the floating trailer parks is the "lack of pump outs" issue. Peanut Island has a bunch of vagabond boats and some beautiful blue water yet for some odd reason the water tests routinely cause the swimming areas to get shut down. The bum boaters are crapping in buckets, then rinsing the buckets in the water which contaminates the area. Seems like when one boat sinks/gets removed, another 2 appear in that spot!

You know they all got on I-75 right after Labor Day headed to Ft. Myer and Sarasota ! We're safe until next May when their Florida condo leases expire.

LOL, yup.

Yep and these guys here are usually found hanging around the public bathrooms on City Island. Some are quite militant about the local homeowners blasting through the designated route between the real mooring field and their floating shanty town.

Yeah, Ive been going to Peanut for almost 14 years now. You dont notice them on the weekend since there are so many boats, but if you take the afternoon off and go up on a weekday, there are 15-20 tied off all over Peanut island. There is a group of complete chit, ready to sink boats that really F-up the view if you know what I mean. These are literally like homeless people that have all their belongings and collect junk in shopping carts. Half of them look abandoned. BUT They arent, people live on them with a 12 foot bayou style rowboat with a 5hp to go to the mainland. These boats never leave and they have junk piled on them 4 feet high. I will get pictures for you guys if its nice this weekend.

Just last weekend we were joking that this is the result of 5 years without any hurricanes, Cause the first one that comes, 95% of these will be gone.

I'm operations manager at a large marina on Bradenton Beach. We discontinued live aboard several years ago. Customers would dump sh!t tanks at night, instead of using free pump out...

We're at $25-$27/ft for annual wet slips.5-10 minutes to gulf.