The Mississippi Sound Ferry departs from Gulfport's harbor each morning, cutting through green-brown waters that lighten to turquoise as you approach the island's white sand crescent. Fort Massachusetts hunkers at the island's heart, its arched casemates cool even at midday, brick walls thick enough to muffle the constant Gulf breeze. Confederate and Union soldiers once paced these same parapets; now brown pelicans roost on the ramparts.
“Mississippi's only Gulf-facing beach requires a ferry journey, preserving an undeveloped barrier island rare along the developed northern Gulf Coast.”
Credit: FlickrBarnacles encrusting wood (Cayo Costa Island, Florida, USA) 4
West Ship Island stretches ten miles east to west, narrow enough that you can hear waves on both shores simultaneously. The southern beach unfolds in a wide apron of packed sand, scattered with conch shells and the occasional sand dollar. Water temperature hovers near eighty degrees from May through October, with sandbars creating shallow lagoons where stingrays glide past your ankles. Sea oats whisper on the dunes behind you; least terns nest in roped-off sections each spring.
You'll carry everything you need for the day—the island offers a snack bar and restrooms but no overnight lodging. By late afternoon, when the last ferry horn sounds, day-trippers trudge back across the sand, sunburned and salt-crusted. The return crossing often brings dolphin pods alongside the boat, their dorsal fins slicing the wake as Gulfport's skyline grows larger on the horizon.
