When I pictured jet skiing, I’ve always envisioned exploring the wide open ocean, maybe jumping a few waves, and spraying a friend a time or two.
But as I took my tour with Captain Ron’s Awesome Everglades Adventures, all arranged thankfully to the Visit Florida Tourism Board, I realized they put a nice spin to the predicament.
Instead of exploring the vast openness of the ocean, we decided to go intercostal.
Zipping in-and-out of the vast ecosystem of intertwined mangrove trees on a single person jet ski offered a unique experience unlike any other I had witnessed while visiting the paradise coast of Florida. After all, it’s not every day you get to cruise alongside dolphins, manatees, and flying pelicans while getting your fill of adventure in on a jet ski.
Mangrove Jet Skiing in Naples Florida
The day started out quite nicely – it had turned out to be partly cloudy; something I was extremely thankful for given how sun burnt I had gotten the day before while exploring Tigertail Beach.
The only other time I had played around on a jet ski, up to this moment, was when I was just North of Naples at Clearwater Beach. But that experience was slightly different given I was primarily hopping waves in the Gulf of Mexico.
This time around I was given the opportunity to weave in-and-out of a large mangrove forest that inhabited the paradise coast. Channels in some areas went as wide as a couple of football fields while, in other areas, were just tight enough to squeeze a jet ski through.
Mix these points with a scattered rain storm and we certainly had a great time. In fact, everyone seemed to have enjoyed the quick rain as it washed off the saltiness the breeze had caked on our skin.
It amazed me at how much our guide Ron, who happened to be the owner of the tour company, knew about the area. He had been jet skiing in-and-out of these channels since the early 70’s and ensured that we received our daily dose of knowledge about the local environment.
At one point he even stopped to pick up the shell of a horseshoe crab – a marine anthropoid that has an exoskeleton that seemed to have crawled out of the Paleozoic Period some 500 million years ago.
As we were getting towards the end of our tour, Ron’s keen eyesight spotted not only the trail of a family of manatees but a pair of two playful young dolphins as well. As instructed, we slowed our speed to that of about 12 to 13 mph and cruised just in front of the dolphins.
Before I knew it, they were playfully leaping through the wake our jet ski’s created as if to say “hi, whatcha doing here?“. I’ve only encountered a dolphin within such close proximity of myself a handful of times and that was usually during a surf session.
All in all, jet skiing along the paradise coast is something I would highly recommend doing. If you’re down for a few hours of whipping in-and-out of mangrove trees while viewing some extraordinary wildlife that is!
Have you ever been jet skiing before?
That’s so cool that you had dolphins swimming along next to you! We have jet skis at our lake cabin in Minnesota and they are so much fun! I’ve yet to go in the ocean or anywhere besides a lake though. Would be fun to go through the mangroves! We go down to Florida quite often, so we will have to check this out sometime!
Hey Jenna, welcome back! At least you have the experience now – make sure you tag me on Twitter or Facebook when you get to go in Florida, I’d love to see what you’d make of the experience! 🙂
Love the pictures!! Never been jet skiing but would love to try it out. You picked a pretty awesome location as well with the dolphins and manatees. Reminds me of taking an airboat tour through the Everglades but this takes it to the next extreme where you are the one in control rather than relying on your guide to show you everything. Looks awesome Ron!
Haha, I wish I had the time to take an airboat tour as well…would’ve been a blast. Growing up in Florida, my Dad used to have an airboat so we would go out in the swamp just riding around and having a blast. Maybe one day I’ll be the one driving one! haha
Sounds like an amazing tour Ron, and FL is definitely the place to do it. We used to live 5 minute from Sanibel, so would take out the canoe to Clearwater on day trips when we could. Never taken a Jet Ski through the mangroves, though often paddled by tours of them who were and it looked like amazing fun! Will have to upgrade my inflatable canoe for a jet skii tour 😀
Hey you can still have fun with a canoe though – you know if I had a canoe out there, I would’ve been fishing all day and drinking a few beers hahaha
Jetskiing is a lot of fun! I did it in Curaçao but it was super windy and the waves were giantic so it was pretty scary from time to time as well. However once we passed by the open sea, it became a lot of fun. I’d imagine Florida to be a lot of fun as well for this…
It sure is a blast Antonette – I think I’d like to go out on some big waves too! haha
Wow, what an adventure! I’d love to try jet skiing sometime, it looks like so much fun. I can’t wait to visit Florida in a month for TBEX, woohoo! Perhaps I’ll meet you there! 🙂
I’m afraid of water so don’t think I will ever go jet skiing! But it looks like fun, lots of fun! And just like you I always imagined it in the open waters but your location in Florida looks actually so much better!!
It really was Kami – you should give it a go sometime! 😉
Mangroves are natural habitats for juvenile fish. You shouldn’t be jet skiing there. This is like jet skiing through a nursery.
Sorry to be grumpy. The Visit Florida boars should’ve known this.
No worries Willy – I totally understand. It wasn’t like we were flying through the mangrove trees though. In these areas, we took it pretty slow and only opened up while out at sea. Even then, we weren’t really “opening up” lol. 🙂