Key West Bight

Key West Bight is the city-owned harbor at the foot of Duval Street and the historic working waterfront where the Conch Republic's commercial sponge, shrimp, and grouper fleets staged for most of the 20th century before tourism overtook the trade — 245 transient-only slips threaded along three concrete fingers, a 175-ft vessel-length cap on the outer megayacht bulkhead, and the highest single-marina vessel throughput in the Florida Keys (no annual slips, period; every booking is a short-stay 1 to 30-night transient rental governed by the Bight Marina Rules and Regulations adopted by the Key West City Commission). Channel depth runs 15 ft at the harbor entrance through the dredged Fleming Key Cut and 12 ft inside the basin alongside the outer bulkhead; the inner finger slips shoal to 8 ft at MLW, capping smaller-draft vessels to the inside row. The marina's fee schedule charges by linear foot per night ($4.50/ft summer, $6.00/ft November-April high season) layered with shore-power amperage tier ($25/night 30-amp, $40/night 50-amp, $80/night 100-amp on the megayacht slip line). Fuel and pumpout run year-round on the dedicated west-bulkhead service dock. Hurricane-season honesty: the marina sits at 4 ft mean elevation above MLW and the 2017 Hurricane Irma storm surge of 5.0 ft (per the NOAA NHC post-storm survey) submerged the entire bulkhead service deck and destroyed roughly 60% of the dock electrical infrastructure, which forced an 11-month closure for rebuild. The marina's mandatory evacuation order triggers when a Category 1 or stronger storm enters the National Weather Service Key West WFO 72-hour forecast cone — all slips must be vacated, no exceptions, and vessel removal is the renter's responsibility under the Bight rules. The harbor lies inside the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary and renters must hold a current vessel registration plus a FWC-compliant pumpout-compliance affidavit; live-aboard tenure is capped at 30 consecutive days. RV-relevant truth: zero on-site RV staging is permitted in the marina lot, and Old Town's historic-district parking ordinances ban any vehicle over 25 ft from every street north of Truman Avenue under City Code §66-243. The closest RV-friendly campground is Boyd's Key West on Stock Island 3 miles east on US-1 (45-ft rig cap, 50-amp electric, 12-month-out booking window via the property's own website — high-season weeks routinely book out 18 months in advance, longer for the November-Power-Boat-Races week).