Honeymoon Island State Park is a popular Gulf Coast destination — but the most extraordinary part is only accessible by boat. A new island formed at the northern tip of Honeymoon Island during the 2024-2025 hurricane season, finally separating completely from the main island. Wayward Key Tours visits this new island regularly — guests have found live sponges and natural treasures on shores very few people have ever walked.-round but most active April through October.
Honeymoon Island Florida by Boat
Honeymoon Island Florida by Boat — A Local Guide
Honeymoon Island State Park is one of the most popular destinations on Florida’s Gulf Coast — but the most extraordinary part of the Honeymoon Island experience is only accessible by boat. A private charter with Wayward Key Tours reveals a side of Honeymoon Island that the vast majority of visitors never see, including a brand new island created by the 2024 hurricane season that can only be reached by water.
What is Honeymoon Island?
Honeymoon Island sits at the northern tip of Dunedin, connected to the mainland by the Dunedin Causeway. The state park encompasses the island’s beaches, trails, and osprey nesting areas and is one of the most visited state parks in Florida. The Gulf-side beach is wide, white, and beautiful — and the park’s osprey nest trail is one of the best places in the Tampa Bay area to see nesting ospreys up close.
What most visitors experience is the park itself — the beach, the trails, the concessions. What they miss entirely is what’s happening at the water’s edge and beyond.
The new island at the north end — only accessible by boat
After the 2024 hurricane season something remarkable happened at the northern end of Honeymoon Island. What had been a stream cutting across the northern tip of the island deepened and widened through the storm surge and tidal action of successive storms until it finally broke through completely — separating a new piece of land from the northern end of Honeymoon Island entirely.
This new island can only be reached by boat. There is no trail, no causeway, no ferry. Captain Keith of Wayward Key Tours navigates to this newly formed island regularly and it has quickly become one of the most talked-about stops on Wayward Key charters. The area is raw and natural in a way that established destinations never are — shaped by the forces of two major hurricanes and still evolving with every tide and storm season.
Walking along this new island guests have found live sponges in the water, unusual shells, and natural treasures that wash up on shores that very few people have walked. The channel that formed between the new island and Honeymoon Island is itself a fascinating natural feature — clear, tidal, and full of marine life.
Live sponges at Honeymoon Island
One of the most unexpected discoveries in the waters around the new northern island is live sponges. Finding live sponges in these waters is an unusual and genuinely memorable experience — a reminder of the rich marine ecosystem beneath the surface of the Gulf and bay waters around Pinellas County. Captain Keith has spotted live sponges here on multiple charters and it has become one of the unique highlights of the Honeymoon Island experience on a Wayward Key Tours charter.
The rest of Honeymoon Island by boat
Beyond the new northern island the waters around Honeymoon Island offer excellent dolphin watching, beautiful sandbar areas in the channel between Honeymoon and Caladesi Islands, and access to Caladesi Island just south through the natural pass. A Honeymoon Island charter with Wayward Key Tours often combines the northern island exploration with a Caladesi sandbar stop and dolphin watching along the Intracoastal on the return.
Wildlife around Honeymoon Island
Dolphins — the Intracoastal Waterway channels around Honeymoon Island and the pass between Honeymoon and Caladesi are among the most consistent spots for dolphin sightings in northern Pinellas County. Pods are regularly spotted feeding in the channels and riding the current through the passes.
Ospreys — Honeymoon Island is one of the best osprey nesting locations in the Tampa Bay area. From the water you can see active nest platforms along the shoreline — a perspective that’s impossible to get from the trails inside the park.
Shorebirds and wading birds — herons, pelicans, roseate spoonbills, and a wide variety of shorebirds feed along the mangrove edges and exposed flats around the island. The protected state park status means wildlife is abundant and relatively undisturbed.
Rays and sea life — the shallow water around the northern end of Honeymoon Island is home to rays, small sharks, and a variety of Gulf Coast marine life visible from the boat or while wading in the shallows.
How to get to Honeymoon Island by boat
Wayward Key Tours departs from Clearwater for Honeymoon Island charters — the trip takes approximately 20-30 minutes depending on conditions. The route north through the Intracoastal Waterway toward Dunedin is one of the most scenic stretches of waterway in Pinellas County, passing through natural mangrove channels and open bay waters.
Can you visit Honeymoon Island State Park from the water?
Guests arriving by private boat can anchor near the island and access the beach by wading or swimming ashore. The park’s facilities — restrooms, concessions, trails — are accessible to guests who come ashore. However most guests on Wayward Key Tours charters find the water itself, the new northern island, and the surrounding sandbar and wildlife areas to be the highlight — the park facilities are there if you want them but they’re not the main draw.
Why this experience is unlike anything else near Clearwater
The newly formed island at the north end of Honeymoon Island is a genuinely rare experience — a place that didn’t exist in its current form before the 2024 hurricane season, that only a handful of people have explored on foot, and that is only accessible by boat. Captain Keith knows how to navigate to it safely and what to look for once you’re there. It’s the kind of discovery that guests talk about long after their charter ends.
Booking a Honeymoon Island charter
Wayward Key Tours offers private Honeymoon Island charters departing from Clearwater. The 2.5-hour Gulf Escape at $350 covers a Honeymoon Island visit with time to explore the northern island and surrounding waters. The 4-hour Full-Day Charter at $400 allows for a more complete experience — northern island exploration, a Caladesi Island sandbar stop, and dolphin watching along the Intracoastal. All charters are fully private for up to 6 guests.
Book Your Honeymoon Island Charter →
Questions? Call or text 727-355-3717 or email contact@waywardkeytours.com.