Ask a longtime Shore Acres resident about Weedon Island and most people describe the same afternoon: park near the fishing pier, drop a kayak in, disappear into the mangrove tunnels for an hour, come out somewhere near where you started. That description used to cover two different water routes through the preserve. Right now it only covers one.
Pinellas County's own park page for Weedon Island Preserve lists the North Paddling Trail as closed. That leaves the South Paddling Trail, the four-mile loop through Masters Bayou and the mangrove tunnels marked by numbered posts 1 through 38, as the only water route into the preserve. It is still one of the better ways to spend a Saturday morning in northeast St. Petersburg. It is just not the preserve some Shore Acres residents remember from a few years back, and the difference changes how you should plan a visit.
What's Actually Open And What Isn't
The preserve sits on roughly 3,190 acres of mangrove, tidal flat, and pine flatwood at the end of Weedon Drive Northeast, and it splits into three distinct ways to move through it.
| Route | Type | Distance | Current status |
|---|---|---|---|
| South Paddling Trail | Kayak or canoe | 4-mile loop, markers 1-38 | Open, tide-dependent |
| North Paddling Trail | Kayak or canoe | Under 2 miles one way, Masters Bayou | Closed |
| Boardwalk and hiking trails | Walking only | 4.5-mile loop, up to 4.7 miles of boardwalk | Open, no bikes or pets |
The South Trail launches from a small beach beside the fishing pier and threads through mangrove tunnels that were never actually natural. They started as mosquito-control canals dug in the 1950s and 60s, which is why the passages feel too straight and too uniform to be anything but engineered. The tunnels give way around the halfway point to more open water along the outer edge of the preserve before looping back to the launch. Most paddlers finish in an hour to ninety minutes.
The preserve itself doesn't rent kayaks. If you don't own one, ECOmersion Kayak handles rentals and guided tours on site, launching from the same area as the self-guided trail.
Timing Still Matters More Than The Route
Even with one paddling trail instead of two, the South Trail only behaves the way you want it to at certain hours. Sections run shallow, so mid to high tide is the difference between a smooth float and dragging a hull over exposed mud. Winds also tend to build through the afternoon, which turns the open-water stretch near the end of the loop from a glide into a slog. Early morning, before the wind picks up and while the tide is still cooperating, is the window locals actually use.
August sits squarely in mosquito season, which the preserve's own guidance flags as running from May through October. Repellent isn't optional shoulder-season advice here. It's a daily requirement if you're heading into the shaded parts of the boardwalk or the mangrove tunnels between now and the first cold front, whenever that finally shows up.
The land side of the preserve runs on a gentler schedule. The boardwalk and hiking trails are open from 7 a.m. to sunset, and the Cultural and Natural History Center, which houses a dugout canoe carbon-dated to roughly 900 A.D. and exhibits on the Weeden Island culture that occupied this land more than a thousand years ago, keeps shorter hours: Thursday through Saturday from 9 to 4, Sunday from 11 to 4, closed Monday through Wednesday. Free admission, free parking, no exceptions during a normal week.
One Saturday In October Rewrites The Whole Routine
Mark October 24 if you use this preserve regularly, because that Saturday is not a normal week. The Friends of Weedon Island, the nonprofit that funds environmental preservation and education work here, is running the 14th Annual Gopher Weedon Trail Run, an 8K that winds through the preserve's mangroves, salt marsh, and scrub habitat on the same dirt and boardwalk paths regulars already know.
The logistics matter more than the course. There is no race-day registration, so anyone hoping to join last minute is out of luck. Advance packet pickup happens the Friday before at Feet First St. Pete on 4th Street North. Race-morning pickup runs from 6:45 to 7:45 a.m. inside the Cultural and Natural History Center auditorium, with the race starting promptly at 8. Parking is limited to the center's lot, which means carpooling isn't a suggestion so much as the only way this works without a standoff along Weedon Drive.
If you're not running it, the practical takeaway is simpler: don't plan your usual quiet morning walk or paddle for that Saturday. The preserve that normally sees a scattering of birders and kayakers turns into the most crowded few hours of its year, all in service of a race whose proceeds go straight back into keeping the trails, the tunnels, and the center running the other 364 days.
The Rec Center A Few Blocks Away
Weedon Island isn't the only piece of daily infrastructure that changed recently. The Shore Acres Recreation Center, at the corner of 40th Avenue North and Shore Acres Boulevard NE, came out of a two-year renovation with a six-lane pool, a full gymnasium, a teen room, and a new playground added to the original footprint. Programming spans yoga, Tae Kwon Do, dog obedience classes, sewing, and seasonal youth camps, and the center runs weekdays from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m., closed weekends.
Near the entrance sits a play-based light installation called TIDAL, designed by the Brooklyn studio The Urban Conga, that reacts as people walk past it. It's a small, strange detail for a neighborhood recreation center to have, and it's the kind of thing you only notice if you're already walking through that door on a regular Tuesday, not passing through once.
Between the rec center's weekday hours and the preserve's split trail system, the two hubs that anchor most of Shore Acres' daily rhythm both run on schedules that shift more often than people assume. The version of Weedon Island you remember from three summers ago isn't wrong, exactly. It's just outdated in a specific, checkable way, and the fix is a five-minute look at the county's own page before you load the kayak.
Marsh Bilby tracks these details because Shore Acres is a neighborhood he works in every week, not a name on a map he glanced at once. If you're weighing a move in or out of Shore Acres and want a straight read on where your home stands today, Marsh Bilby offers a free home valuation, no obligation attached.
