The best beaches in FL have come under scrutiny of the local town fathers, who have seen beaches and boats of all types as a money a making opportunity, by tacking on boat registration fees, parking fees, etc. and not allowing sailboats or jet ski's or kites or windsurfers into what is left of the public beaches. You have the 'liability issues' too, what happens if a cat runs over a kid in the water?

The overdevelopment (think huge Condo's instead of mom'n pop motels) of the beaches caused a lot of good public beaches to go private as well, which reduced the amount of launch sites. It's tough to find a place on a 'public' beach to park a trailer, set up and launch, without getting a ticket for...something.