Bonita Springs docks, built for skinny water

A river, the back bays, and the tide

Bonita Springs sits at the south end of Lee County, between Estero and the Collier County line, with Bonita Beach fronting the Gulf. The Imperial River winds through town and finds its way out through the back bays at the bottom of Estero Bay. Wherever your dock sits on that run, river bank or back-bay canal, the water is the thing that decides how it gets built.

For us this is the southern end of our water, a barge run down past Estero from home base in Cape Coral. We work off the barge, so nothing rolls across your yard and nothing waits on driveway access. It does mean we read the tide before we plan a day, which is exactly the habit this water rewards.

The boats down here tell the same story. Plenty of Gulf-access hulls live on skinny bay water, threading shallows on the way out and coming home on whatever tide is left. A dock and a lift have to work at the bottom of the swing, not just at the pretty part of it.