Designated anchoring areas in the Florida Keys

In short

FWC has designated seven anchoring areas in Monroe County, in force since 3 October 2023 (Fla. Admin. Code 68D-14.002).
Each one has a maximum vessel draft of its own: 2 ft at Garrison Bight Flats and in Cow Key Channel, 6 ft at the other five (68D-14.003).
The draft limit is a rule about the boat, not a sounding: 68D-14.003 leaves the water depth to the operator.

The seven areas

FWC designated seven anchoring areas in Monroe County, and they have been in force since 3 October 2023. Fla. Admin. Code 68D-14.002 draws each one as a box of numbered boundary points; 68D-14.003 then gives each box a maximum vessel draft.

Area	Where	Maximum draft	Size	Draft rule
Fleming Key	Man of War Harbor, Key West	6 ft	100 acres	68D-14.003(1)(a)
Sigsbee	Gulf of America off Sigsbee Park	6 ft	35 acres	68D-14.003(1)(b)
Garrison Bight Flats	Flats of Garrison Bight, Key West	2 ft	135 acres	68D-14.003(1)(c)
Cow Key Channel West	West of the channel, east of Key West	2 ft	42 acres	68D-14.003(1)(d)
Cow Key Channel East	East of the channel, south of Cow Key	2 ft	48 acres	68D-14.003(1)(d)
Niles Channel	East of Summerland Key	6 ft	29 acres	68D-14.003(1)(e)
Bahia Honda Channel	West of the state park	6 ft	7 acres	68D-14.003(1)(f)
Boot Key	Atlantic west of Boot Key, Marathon	6 ft	80 acres	68D-14.003(1)(g)

Eight rows, seven areas: Cow Key Channel is one designation with a western and an eastern box, one each side of the marked channel, and the navigation channel between them is excluded from both.

What the draft limit is, and what it is not

Read the right-hand column of the rule as a rule about your boat. Where it says 6 ft, a boat drawing more than 6 ft may not lie in that area; where it says 2 ft, most keelboats are out. What the figure does not do is promise water. 68D-14.003 leaves the depth under the keel to the vessel operator, and none of these boxes is a surveyed anchorage.

The two 2 ft areas make that plain. Garrison Bight Flats is the largest designated area at Key West, 135 acres, and it is flats; Cow Key Channel is crossed by two fixed bridges with 9 ft of vertical clearance and an overhead cable at 25 ft, and north of the bridges Coast Pilot 4 calls the channel unmarked and hard to follow. Neither acreage nor a draft limit says anything about what is under you on the day. The chart does.

Why the designation matters: the 90-day clock

All of Monroe County is an anchoring limitation area under F.S. 327.4108. Within 10 nm of a public mooring field or a designated anchoring area, a boat at anchor has to move at least 0.5 nm after 90 days – and one of the permitted moves is into another designated anchoring area. Seven designations in one county is what makes that workable: three of them are at Key West, and Cow Key Channel adds two more boxes just east of the island.

A mooring is the other way out of the clock: the 90-day rule does not apply to a boat on a mooring. And separately from all of this, since 1 January 2026 lying 14 days or more within any 30 days near one spot needs a free long-term anchoring permit from FWC (F.S. 327.4111).

Getting to them

Three of the seven are at Key West, and they are the ones with company: Fleming Key sits in Man of War Harbor, where Coast Pilot 4 gives 14 to 26 ft for the harbor as a whole and reports wrecks, visible and submerged, and where the area’s eastern boundary is the naval restricted area off the key.

Further up the chain the areas are tied to passes rather than towns. Niles Channel is, in the Coast Pilot’s words, the best channel between Bahia Honda Channel and Key West, 18 miles westward of Sombrero Key Light, with 40 ft under the highway bridge. Boot Key is the water outside Boot Key Harbor, between the two channel entrances, 4.5 miles north of Sombrero Key Light, with four radio towers on the south-west end of the key as the landmark. Bahia Honda Channel is the deepest pass between the Straits of Florida and Florida Bay, and there the bridges are the limit, not the water.

Each area has a page in this guide with its boundary point, its clearances and what the Coast Pilot says about getting in.

Places that work

See the water before you get there

Depths, seamarks and tides for every place in this guide – offline in buoya.

Get buoya

Questions

How many designated anchoring areas are there in the Florida Keys?

Seven, all in Monroe County: Fleming Key, Sigsbee and Garrison Bight Flats at Key West, Cow Key Channel (a western and an eastern box), Niles Channel, Bahia Honda Channel and Boot Key. They have been in force since 3 October 2023 under Fla. Admin. Code 68D-14.002.

What draft is allowed in each area?

Fla. Admin. Code 68D-14.003 sets a maximum vessel draft for every area: 2 ft on the Garrison Bight Flats and in both Cow Key Channel boxes, and 6 ft at Fleming Key, Sigsbee, Niles Channel, Bahia Honda Channel and Boot Key.

Does the draft limit mean there is that much water?

No. The limit says how deep a boat may draw to lie in the area; 68D-14.003 leaves the water depth itself to the operator. The areas are not surveyed anchorages, and nothing in the rule promises a sounding. Read the depths off the current chart.

Why would I anchor in a designated area at all?

Because of the clock. All of Monroe County is an anchoring limitation area under F.S. 327.4108: within 10 nm of a public mooring field or a designated anchoring area you must move at least 0.5 nm after 90 days – or into another designated area, which is the one move that keeps you in the same water.

Sources & checks

Written by buoya editorial from the sources above. Every figure was checked against its source on 21 Oct 2026. Found something wrong? Report a correction.

All harbors and anchorages in the Florida Keys →