Cedar Key Boat Ramps & Marinas: Complete Guide

The Ramps That Still Work

The town of 756 people holds more than 800 housing units, and 450 of them sit vacant — a number that tells you something about storms, seasons, and the slow arithmetic of a place built on a commodity that ran out. The cedar is gone, the mills are gone, but the water stays. What remains are ramps, piers, and marinas, each with a different character and a different kind of access.

CK Marina is the most substantial operation, rated 4.9 from 165 reviews at 12780 FL-24. It is the only full-service marina on the list, and the one most visitors will find first. From here, the Gulf is minutes away, and the channels are marked. If you have a boat, this is the practical base.

For the rest, the ramps are the story. Shell Mound Unpaved Boat Ramp (4.7, 92 reviews) sits on Co Rd 326, and its name is honest: it is unpaved, and it serves the flats and the backcountry. The Shell Mound Paved Boat Ramp (4.0, 2 reviews) at 17650 SW 78 Pl is the smoother alternative, though it sees far less traffic. #4 Bridge Boat Ramp & Fishing Pier (4.6, 68 reviews) at 11311 SW 153rd Ct gives you both a ramp and a pier, which is useful if half your party wants to fish and the other half wants to launch. Inside Boat Ramp (4.4, 28 reviews) at 8070 A St is the sheltered option, and Canoe Launch (4.5, 15 reviews) at 11350 SW 153rd Ct is exactly what it says — a place for kayaks and canoes, not trailers. The Outside boat ramp (4.3, 6 reviews) is the most exposed, and the least used, which tells you something about the weather here.

The Water That Made the Town

You cannot understand these ramps without understanding what they float on. Augustus Steele bought the military structures on Atsena Otie Key in 1843 for $227, along with title to its 167 acres, and that island became the nucleus of the first organised settlement in the Cedar Keys. Atsena Otie means "cedar island" in the Creek language — the cedar that gave the whole group of keys its name.

The milling came after. The Eberhard Faber mill, set up in 1865, cut red cedar slats for pencils, and by 1886 the 17 sawmills at Cedar Key were turning out nearly half a million board feet a week. Cedar Key supplied the wood the world wrote with: both the Eberhard Faber mill and the Eagle Pencil Company cut pencil slats here until the 1896 hurricane and fire damaged both so badly that they closed soon after. The Eagle Pencil Company site on Way Key at 3rd and G Streets made cedar slats and pencil boxes. The town was bigger than its present population suggests; it is smaller than its history, and the vacant lots and empty houses are the evidence.

The Practical Numbers

The census tells you what kind of place this is. The median age is 68.4 years. The median home value is $331,100, and the median gross rent is $918. Nearly half the housing units — 450 of 819 — are vacant, and 269 are held for seasonal or recreational use. The unemployment rate is 4.2 percent, and the median household income is $69,226. Almost half the residents — 49.7 percent — hold a bachelor's degree or higher. This is not a poor town, but it is a small one, and it is a town where the second home outnumbers the first.

When to Come

The Cedar Key Seafood Festival, run by the Lions Club each October, brings more than 100 arts and crafts exhibits, live music, a Saturday parade at 11am, and the rare chance to reach Seahorse Key, a historic island three miles out that is otherwise closed to the public. It is the one weekend when the town's population swells beyond its census count.

If you miss October, the ramps are still here. The water is still here. The cedar is not, but the town that grew around it remains, smaller than its history, and still willing to put you on the Gulf.