Kice Island
Marco Island, FL
Kice Island is the sheller's prize of the Ten Thousand Islands, an undeveloped barrier beach south of Marco Island reachable only by boat across Caxambas Pass, with the nearby ruins of the Cape Romano dome house half submerged just offshore. Dickmans Island, Big Morgan Island, and Sea Oat Island round out the same wild, boat-only cluster, each blending into the next with the tide.
A genuinely wild, boat-only barrier island chain with some of the best shelling in Florida and a famous half-sunken ruin nearby is hard to match, though the cost and skill needed to navigate the channels keep it out of reach for a casual visit.
How we score beachesBook a boat tour out of Goodland or Marco Island rather than trying to navigate the shallow, shifting channels yourself, local captains know the sandbars that shift after every storm. Only empty shells can be collected here under Collier County rule, so leave anything with a living creature inside where you found it.
There's no vehicle access. Boat tours from Goodland or Marco Island run in the range of a few hundred dollars for a private rental, or less per person on a shared tour.
Boats anchor offshore or nose onto the sand, with no dock or path of any kind. The ground is natural sand and shell the entire length of the island chain, uneven in spots.
Check with your boat tour or rental operator directly, as pet policies vary by company and aren't uniformly documented for this remote cluster.
Winter and spring bring the calmest water for the boat crossing and the best shelling after cold front swells. Summer heat and hurricane season, June through November, make the trip out rougher and less predictable.
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