Anna Marie Island - Marina Recommendation?

[HeartsContent]

We are looking to spend a few nights on our sailboat at Anna Marie Island.

The Seafood Shack has been recommended by a very nice couple. It's in Cortez, Fl and looks a bit far away from the action.

Curious is anyone has any other tips.

TIA!

[mamadawn]

Cortez is definitely not far from the action. To get to the island from the seafood shack, you would need to cross the bridge (it's not a bad walk, or you might be able to take the dinghy to the island side of the icw?) and then you can take the free trolley anywhere you want to go. The whole island is only 7 miles long, so everything is pretty darn close.

The city of cortez itself is cool too, with a fisheries preserve, funky restaurants, and the maritime museum Maritime Museum
The best fish markets are in Cortez as well.

The north end, city of Anna Maria, is my favorite place, very homey and laid-back. From the cortez bridge, it's 20 minutes on the trolley, a pretty ride, and folks on the trolley are always friendly. There's a marina up near Rotten Ralph's, but I've read that it doesn't allow boats under 40'?

You'll love it.

[HeartsContent]

The Seafood Shack it is and we are really looking forward to this.

[mamadawn]

Oh, I forgot to mention how useful it would be to have bikes. The northern tip of the island (north of Pine Avenue) is outside the range of the trolley - it heads north on gulf drive, then turns right on pine to go to the city pier, where it turns around and heads south again. This means that you can't take the trolley all the way to the rod & reel pier, bean point, or rotten ralph's / galati. You can definitely walk to all of these, it's about a 2 mile loop around north shore drive, but bikes are nice.

If you don't bring them with you, you can rent them anywhere.. the people are especially nice at Beach Bums on Pine. You can toss your bike on the rack on the trolley too, to get quickly to whatever area you want to explore or when you get tired of pedaling.

dawn

[remetau]

We put our boat in at Bradenton Beach Marina and stayed there for about a week. Nice location.

Bradenton Beach Marina