East versus West wall
WaterLine photo by Josh Olive
The east wall bar will look like this in a couple months. Right now, the water's still a little brown. The dark areas here are seagrass beds; the light areas are clean bare sand.
The east and west sides of the Harbor are popular places to fish. Both are mangrove shorelines protected by a sand bar but the similarities stop there. They are both referred to as the east and west wall. Technically, it is the “west wall” and “east keys” because the east side is made up of small islands and keys and the west side is a pretty flat wall of mangroves.
The first difference is the sandbar: The sandbar on the west side isn’t as pronounced as the eastern sandbar. You won’t see the west side sandbar sticking out of the water like you will on the east. That makes the east side a little more protected in heavier winds. What that means to you is that you can run behind that sandbar in higher winds than the west side. During moderate winds, both are relatively calm, but when that wind steps up to 20 knots and above you can see the difference.