Boca Grande Pass is deep, it's the main mouth of Charlotte Harbor, and it moves a lot of water fast. This planner runs off the Port Boca Grande station at the south end of Gasparilla Island, which sits on the pass rather than behind it.
Open the tide planner for Port Boca GrandePre-set to NOAA station 8725577. Set your depth and hours, get your days.The pass sits between the south end of Gasparilla Island and Cayo Costa, and it's naturally deep, deep enough that it was used to load phosphate onto ocean-going ships for decades. That depth means current, not water level, is usually the bigger concern for boaters here. On a strong tide, especially around the new and full moon, the pass can run hard enough to make anchoring or drifting genuinely difficult, and it catches plenty of small-boat traffic that isn't ready for it.
Access to the island itself is by the Boca Grande Causeway, a tolled swing bridge crossing Gasparilla Sound. If you're launching from the mainland side rather than the island, most boaters go out through Placida, which is a good run up inside the sound from the pass itself.
Most trips to the pass launch from Placida on the mainland side rather than from the island itself, since public ramp access on Gasparilla Island is limited. From Placida it's a run out through Gasparilla Sound to reach the pass, budget extra time on a hard tide since the sound itself can get lumpy when wind fights current.
Predictions for this page come from NOAA station 8725577, Port Boca Grande, at the southern end of Gasparilla Island where Charlotte Harbor meets the Gulf. That matters, because the obvious alternative sits in the wrong place. Station 8725667, Placida, is roughly seven miles up inside Gasparilla Sound, its gauge historically at the Coral Creek bridge on County Road 771. Water behind a barrier island fills and drains through the passes, so an inside-the-sound gauge lags the pass and shows a smaller swing.
The scale of that difference is worth knowing. Placida's mean tidal range is 0.82 ft with a great diurnal range of 1.41 ft, and its own predictions are derived from Punta Gorda (8725744) rather than measured locally. If you time the pass off an inside station, you are reading the wrong water at the wrong moment.
Fishing the tide here instead · How the predictions work