The Markers South of Gordon Pass Are Being Redesigned to Move With the Sand

As of its September 30, 2026 notice, the Coast Guard lists 21 damaged or missing daybeacons on the Big Marco Pass–Gordon Pass channel. It wants to replace 13 of them with buoys instead of new posts. That proposal and a new Army Corps of Engineers dredging plan for the south end of the route point the same way. The inside run from Gordon Pass to Marco Island is now treated as a channel that shifts, and its markers are meant to shift with it.

For anyone who keeps a boat on an Aqualane Shores canal and heads south past Keewaydin toward Capri or Marco, this changes how to read the water. A daybeacon is a fixed post driven into the bottom. Once it's in, it marks the same spot for good, even after the sand has moved. The floats being proposed for this channel are designed to be repositioned.

What the Coast Guard's list shows

The Coast Guard's Local Notice to Mariners for the Southeast District, dated 09/30/2026, has a "Federal Discrepancies" section for the Big Marco Pass–Gordon Pass channel. Most of the 21 daybeacons in it are marked structure destroyed, and four are marked missing: 2A, 3, 56 and 67. Daybeacon 27A is also flagged as a hazard to navigation. Daybeacon 18A shows up again under temporary changes as discontinued.

Privately maintained aids near the south end have problems too. The same notice lists Big Marco Pass Obstruction Daybeacons A, B and C and Obstruction Light E as destroyed, and Isles of Capri Daybeacon 6 as missing.

The conversion proposal splits the federal list into two groups:

The second group includes 27A, the one flagged as a hazard to navigation. The proposal doesn't say what will happen to those eight. The notice lists them as discrepancies, and that's all it says about them.

Why posts are giving way to floats

The Coast Guard explains the reason in the proposal itself: "Coast Guard assets are unable to access the fixed structures due to shallow water depths." It says the change "will allow for timelier relocation of Aids when shoaling evolves," which it expects to give mariners "a safer and more reliable channel."

So the water around some of these posts has gotten too shallow for the crews who service them. Out of reach, a damaged post stays damaged, and even a sound one stays put after the deep water has moved away from it. The replacements are listed as unlighted. The proposal covers a period from September 2, 2026 to August 8, 2031, and comments were due by November 2, 2026, so that window has now closed.

The Army Corps of Engineers explains why this part of the route behaves the way it does. In its October 2026 draft Environmental Assessment for the Naples to Big Marco Pass project, the Corps calls the stretch between the two passes "uncontrolled." That means a channel that "follows best water (naturally deep areas) rather than an exact alignment specified in the project authorization reports." It has an authorized depth and width, but its path isn't fixed by coordinates. Floating markers suit a channel defined that way. The aids follow the deep water, and the deep water moves.

Gordon Pass is maintained regularly, Big Marco Pass has never been

The two ends of the trip have very different maintenance histories. According to the Corps, Gordon Pass has been maintained since its initial construction in 1960, most recently in 2025. Big Marco Pass, about 9 miles south, "has not been maintained since its original construction" because there were few places to put the sand and the pass shoaled slowly.

The 2025 work at the Naples end has a public record. The Corps awarded Southwind a $3,045,784.37 contract on September 2, 2025 for Gordon Pass cuts 1 through 7 and the settling basin. The plan called for about 65,000 cubic yards of sand to go on Keewaydin, and the release expected work to begin in November 2025.

The south end hasn't had that attention. In 2024, the Coast Guard identified a need to dredge Cuts J through O near Big Marco Pass and Cuts 1 through 3 of the uncontrolled channel. The environmental review for that work had never been done before. The October 2026 draft assessment is that review.

What the Corps is proposing for the south end

The preferred alternative would dredge those cuts to the authorized 6 feet at mean lower low water, plus 1 foot of allowable overdepth. Depending on whether the material is suitable and how much each site can hold, it would go on Sand Dollar Island, the Rookery Islands Sand Bar Complex, Key Island or Keewaydin Island. The work runs "up to but not including Gordon Pass," and the City of Naples is the project's non-federal sponsor.

Those sand sites are places Naples boaters already know. The Corps describes Keewaydin Island as lying immediately west of the federal channel, with its northern end at the entrance to Gordon Pass. Key Island sits where the uncontrolled channel meets the Gordon Pass section, and Sand Dollar Island at Tigertail Beach is just south of Big Marco Pass.

The draft also describes what boaters would see while the work is underway. The Corps considered cutter-suction and clamshell dredges and says a drag bar may be used to level high spots. It calls a hopper dredge unlikely because the channel is so shallow. According to the assessment, a dredge or pipeline could temporarily block part of the navigable channel, and recreational boating, paddling and swimming would see temporary, minor effects that end when construction does. After that, the Corps expects removing the shoals to improve navigation and reduce groundings for both commercial and recreational boats.

What has no date yet

The draft doesn't give a construction start date. It says the contract period will run longer than the actual dredging, which depends on how much material has built up and can be slowed by weather or equipment problems. Its estimate assumes round-the-clock, seven-day work. The most recent public funding figures are thin. The Corps' May 2025 fact sheet for Naples to Big Marco Pass shows a regular FY25 Civil Works allocation of $0, lists the FY26 budget as "TBD," and records $10 million in disaster relief supplemental funds allocated through FY24.

Here is where things stand as of publication:

• Coast Guard floating-aid proposal: comment period closed November 2, 2026; no installation date announced.
• Corps draft assessment and proposed Finding of No Significant Impact: issued October 13, 2026; comments due November 12, 2026, on the Jacksonville District's environmental documents page.
• Big Marco Pass Critical Wildlife Area: the draft notes nesting-area closures from March 1 through August 31. That describes the wildlife area, not a dredging schedule.

Marco Island has been arguing about the same shoals

The channel has been a public issue at the other end of the route too. Coastal Breeze News reported that at the February 17 Marco Island City Council meeting, the manager of Rose Marina proposed using existing Tigertail Lagoon permits to dredge parts of Big Marco Pass. He said storms had left shallow areas that can be hazardous for larger boats at low tide. The paper reported his account that after several groundings in 2020 and 2021, the Coast Guard moved markers into deeper water, which helped but didn't remove every shallow spot. Some residents told council that moving the markers had already dealt with the immediate concerns. Council sent the proposal back to its Waterways Advisory Committee for more review.

That account from 2020 and 2021 describes the same response the Coast Guard is now proposing across a much longer stretch: when the shoals move, move the markers. The fall 2026 proposal would make that approach standard on 13 aids between the two passes. In the meantime, the Corps' plan to dredge the south end for the first time is still in draft, with no start date.

Taking the boat south from Aqualane Shores this season? McGreevy and Comisar follow the federal notices on Gordon Pass and the channel to Marco just as closely as the canal grid. If you'd like to go over what these changes mean for your dock and your usual routes, let's connect.