About Us

Mission/Vision

Tampa Bay Boater is dedicated to promoting boating in and around the bay area by providing exposure, information and services to enhance the recreational boating experience. We do so to advance the protection of our precious resource and habitat for natural species by promoting and facilitating direct contributions to organizations dedicated to their protection and community education.

Core Values

  • Service
  • Respect
  • Community
  • Social Responsiblity
  • Integrity
  • Education

Our History

Tampa Bay Boater was created to promote boating in our area by sharing resources, information and images to enhance the experience of recreational boaters in and around Tampa Bay. As a retired science teacher from Pinellas County our founder has always been a huge fan of our local non-profits whose work it is to educate the public on the fragility of our natural systems and the need to protect them. Having raised four children in the Pink Streets of Pinellas Point where summers were dedicated to exploring, boating, springs trips, and participation in beach clean ups, salt marsh grass plantings, tours MOTE Marine, and the occasional rescue of ECSAR it was a natural to have he focus of this site to promote their services.

We started with boating images thinking that everyone has a great picture of their boat at the dock, sand bar, on the trailer and in the showroom but not many have a high quality image with them at the helm and their friends and family as crew. As the site became more popular we've added a maps section: boat ramps, restaurants with docking, hotels/motels with docks and local marinas that provide fuel or tie ups when you're in the area. Along with these we've started reviews of the same so that our visitors get a first hand view of what they might expect before they arrive.

Expect to see our white on white Key West 219FS, and white Honda 200, on your local waterways on weekends where we make the low resolution images free to download/share and the high resolution originals FREE with your contribution to Tampa Bay Watch, ECSAR or MOTE Marine Laboratory. If you're enjoying the quality of our local waterways and marine life hopefully you're already a supporter but if not there is no reason to wait for your picture here to step up and do so!