Rosen Park
The most fully equipped public launch in the city. Two ramps, 57 trailer spots, wet slips, and saltwater all the way out.
See the ramp →
Horton Park
The shortest published run to the Causeway of any city ramp, and a smaller, quieter park than Rosen.
See the ramp →
Burnt Store
The only city ramp that does not launch into the Caloosahatchee. Different water, different fishing, different run.
See the ramp →
BMX (Strausser)
Freshwater, and landlocked. Cheap, quiet, and no route to the Gulf at all. Know that before you tow.
See the ramp →| Rosen Park | Saltwater, Caloosahatchee. Two ramps, 57 trailer spaces, 19 wet slips, showers and a pump-out. 11.2 miles to the Causeway. Zone 1959 |
|---|---|
| Horton Park | Saltwater, Caloosahatchee. Two lanes, 31 trailer spaces, flush restrooms. 10.9 miles to the Causeway. Zone 1958 |
| Burnt Store | Saltwater, but into Matlacha Pass rather than the river. Two lanes, 19 trailer spaces, flush restrooms. No published mileage. Zone 1961 |
| BMX (Strausser) | Freshwater and landlocked. Two lanes, 15 trailer spaces, a composting toilet. No route to the Gulf at all. Zone 1960 |
All four charge the same: $15 a day to park a trailer, or a decal at $75 + tax a year, Cape Coral residents and Cape Coral-based businesses only. Car parking is free at all of them; the fee is for the trailer. Fees and zones checked against the city 3 September 2026. Lane counts, trailer-space counts and restrooms come from the FWC Florida Boat Ramp Inventory, because the city does not publish them for three of the four.
Which one you actually want
If you are launching a saltwater boat and you live in the south east, it is Rosen or Horton, and the choice between them is about size rather than distance. Rosen is the bigger facility by a long way: 57 trailer spaces against 31, plus a 19-slip marina, showers, laundry and a pump-out. Horton is the smaller, quieter park, and by the city’s own figures it is three tenths of a mile closer to the Sanibel Causeway. That is not a difference worth driving across town for.
If your fishing is north or west, toward Charlotte Harbour, Matlacha and Pine Island Sound, Burnt Store is the one that points that way. It is the only city ramp that does not launch into the Caloosahatchee, and from the north west side of the city it saves a long tow round.
If you turn up at the BMX ramp expecting the Gulf, you will not find it. That launch is freshwater and landlocked. It is a good ramp onto calm, protected water and a bad one to discover by accident, which is the whole reason it has a page here rather than a footnote.
Bridges are a house problem, not a ramp problem
All three saltwater ramps drop you onto open water with nothing over your head. Rosen sits on Chantry Canal, which carries no crossing at all. Horton sits at the mouth of Everest Canal, whose one 8.3 ft crossing is upstream, behind the ramp. Burnt Store opens into the Spreader, with the low Burnt Store Road crossing inland of it. Tow to any of the three and air draft never comes up.
It comes up when the boat lives at the house. Then every fixed crossing between your own canal and the river counts, the lowest one is your ceiling for as long as you own the place, and they start at 5.5 ft. We publish the clearance for all 157 crossings we map, filterable by air draft, and the canal map settles it for one specific address.
Which is the useful way round to think about it. A dry lot near a ramp can be the cheaper way to own a tall boat than a canal lot with a bridge in front of it.
Not on this page
The Yacht Club ramp, 5819 Driftwood Pkwy, has been closed since Hurricane Ian in 2022. It is not being repaired in place: it is being relocated into the new marina basin as part of the Yacht Club redevelopment. No reopening date has been announced, so there is nothing here to publish beyond that.
The city also keeps several unimproved freshwater launches. They are free, they have no facilities, and like the BMX ramp they are freshwater, so there is no route to the Gulf from any of them.
Just outside the city, Lee County runs ramps at Matlacha and at Punta Rassa, the latter at the foot of the Sanibel Causeway and the closest public launch to San Carlos Bay. Both charge $10 a day rather than $15. If you are buying with a boat in mind, they are worth knowing about, because the nearest ramp to your house is not always the nearest ramp to your fishing.
