Pensacola Beach to Mobile Bay
Float Plan
Plan a day of fishing. Tell it where you launch, what you are after and how long you have. Float Plan lays out a run of spots for the season and the day's wind, sketches the legs along the marked channels, times each one at a cruise speed for your class of boat, and flags the sand bars to check on the way. Add a dock lunch, a swim or a sunset dinner if the day calls for it. A planning aid, not a navigation chart. Confirm all of it on your own chart and sounder before you run it.
Plan the run
Wind, seas and tideLoading
| Loading the marine forecast for Perdido Pass… |
Wind and seas load from the marine forecast at your launch point for the day you pick, up to a week out; tides from the NOAA station nearest your launch. Edit the numbers to test a what-if, then tap Use forecast to go back to the real thing.
Planning sketch only. Do not navigate from this map. Confirm the route on your chartplotter and current NOAA charts before you leave the dock.
Fuel and range
Fill in your boat and crew, then print it or copy it and text it to someone staying ashore. It saves on this device only, so you only type it once.
How this is made, and what it is not.
Every stop is a real place with a dock note, a kid rating and a scene rating: dock-and-dine restaurants, sand bars and islands, fishing spots by season, fuel docks and ramps from Santa Rosa Sound and Pensacola Bay west through Perdido, Orange Beach and Gulf Shores to Bon Secour Bay, Fort Morgan, Dauphin Island and Mobile Bay. Float Plan fills a template for the kind of day you picked, scores each candidate by boat fit, crew fit, run time from the last stop and the day's conditions, then routes every leg along the ICW and Old River rather than across Ono Island. Run times use your boat's cruise speed with an allowance for no-wake zones. Wind and seas come from the Open-Meteo marine forecast at your launch point, tides from the NOAA prediction station nearest your launch (Pensacola, Alabama Point, Gulf Shores, Fort Morgan, Dauphin Island, Weeks Bay or Mobile State Docks; the one in use is named on the tide line), sunset from the date.
All of it is approximate. Sand bar positions and depths are estimates from chart study and local knowledge, checked against the interpolated tide for the time you would pass. Fuel burn is a class average, not your boat. Restaurant hours are typical in-season hours. Coordinates are chart-level. The 36 Alabama public inshore reefs come from the Alabama Department of Conservation and Natural Resources reef list (current as of September 2023), with the state's positions, depths and materials; the seasonal species lines are the program's usual inshore targets, not a survey of each reef. Nothing here is surveyed, and any of it can be wrong or out of date.
Read this before you untie. Float Plan is a trip-planning aid for recreational boaters. It is not a navigation chart, not a marine forecast and not advice. Do not navigate with this page. Use current NOAA charts and your own depth sounder, get the official forecast from the National Weather Service and the Coast Guard, and confirm hours, dockage and fuel by calling the business. Sand bars, shoals and passes on this coast move constantly.
The decision to go, the route you run and everything that happens aboard are the operator's alone. Gulf Coast Bite, LLC makes no warranty of any kind, express or implied, about the accuracy, completeness or fitness of this information, and accepts no liability for any loss, injury, damage or death arising from its use. Use of this page is at your own risk and subject to the site Terms.
What a float plan is, and how to use this one.
A float plan is a note you leave with someone ashore: who is aboard, what the boat looks like, where you are going, when you expect to be back, and who to call if you are not. The Coast Guard does not file them. A person you trust holds it, and it only matters on the one day something goes wrong. The sheet above is that note, filled in from the day you just planned.
Plan the day here, then confirm it the way you would any plan: open the run on your chartplotter, check the depths on a current NOAA chart, get the official forecast from the National Weather Service, and call the dock before you count on lunch. When the plan holds up, print the sheet or copy it and text it to whoever is staying home.
Sample days to start from: a beach day out of Boggy Point, dock and dine from Gulf Shores, a fishing day off Fairhope.
Questions people ask
- Do I need a float plan for a short trip?
- If anyone would wonder where you are, yes. Texting the sheet takes a minute, and the short trips are the ones nobody thinks to plan.
- Can I navigate from this map?
- No. It is a sketch of a sensible run along marked channels, drawn on a coastline file, and nothing on it is surveyed. Navigate from your chartplotter, current NOAA charts and your own sounder.
- Does the GPX file work with my chartplotter?
- Compatible chartplotters and navigation apps import GPX waypoints and routes. The file includes each stop's planned times and dock notes; what appears after import depends on your device or app.
- Where do the weather and tides come from?
- Wind, gusts, seas and rain chance come from the Open-Meteo marine forecast at your launch point. Tides are NOAA predictions from the nearest of seven stations between Pensacola and Mobile, named on the tide line. Neither replaces the official marine forecast.
- Can I use this for an offshore trip?
- No. Every stop is inshore or just outside a pass, from Pensacola Bay to Mobile Bay and Dauphin Island. An offshore day needs a real passage plan and a real forecast.
- What should I leave with my shore contact?
- The sheet: the vessel and how to recognise it, your MMSI and beacon ID if you have them, who is aboard, the route with times, where the truck and trailer are, when you will check in, and the time at which they should call the Coast Guard.
- Are the restaurant hours and docks accurate?
- They are the hours each place publishes and the dock detail it describes. Both change with the season and the owner, so call before you tie the day to lunch.