Shalimar is a water town. Boat ramps, bayou docks, bay beaches, golf fairways, and parks are where people spend their days off, and they are where keys get dropped, locked in, or soaked. This page is for the lockout that starts with 'my keys are at the bottom of the bayou.' Call (850) 740-4734 and a Shalimar locksmith comes to the ramp, the park, or the dock.
📞 Call (850) 740-4734✓ We come to the ramp or the park · ✓ Car opened without damage · ✓ Keys cut and fobs programmed on the spot where possible
An ordinary lockout is a key left on the kitchen counter. A Shalimar water-day lockout is different in almost every way. The key is not misplaced; it is in six feet of brackish water off a dock on Garnier Bayou. The car is not in a driveway; it is on a gravel lot at a boat launch with the sun going down and a boat still on the trailer. The fob did not die of old age; it went into Choctawhatchee Bay in a swimsuit pocket. These calls need a locksmith who understands that the truck has to reach a ramp, that the car probably has to be driven home tonight, and that everything on you is wet.
We handle these calls all over the Shalimar waterfront: the ramps and docks along Poquito Bayou, the Garnier Bayou shoreline, the Cinco Bayou launches, the bay beaches toward Ocean City, and the parks and green spaces off Old Ferry Road and Meigs Drive. Call (850) 740-4734 and tell us which ramp or park you are at.
This is the classic Shalimar call. You were tying off a line, stepping from the boat to the dock, or backing the trailer down the ramp, and the key ring went in. Sometimes a diver or a magnet on a rope gets it back. Usually it is gone, and in bayou water a key that sits overnight is corroded enough that a fob will never work again anyway.
Two problems, in order. First, you need to get into the car, which is locked with your phone charger, wallet, and dry clothes inside. We open it without damage using an air wedge and a reach tool. Second, you need to drive it home, which means a working key. For many vehicles we can cut a new mechanical key and program a new transponder or fob at the ramp, on the spot, using the car's own data. For some newer models the process is longer or needs a dealer-only part, and we tell you that honestly on the phone once you give us the make, model, and year.
Outboard ignition keys are simpler than car keys and we can often cut one from the ignition code or from the lock itself. Tell us the engine brand when you call. If the boat has a cabin lock or a locking hatch, those are ordinary marine cylinders and we can open or rekey them.
If your house key is now in the bayou, the ring may have been found by someone else, or it may not. Either way, the sensible move is to rekey the house so a key that surfaces in someone's crab trap cannot open your door. We can do that the same day, after we get you into the car.
The second big category is a car locked with the keys inside at a spot that is not a driveway. You put the key on the seat to load the cooler, closed the door, and the car auto-locked. Or a kid pressed the lock button on the fob through the window. Or the fob is in the trunk with the beach chairs. It happens at the bayou parks, at the launches, at the golf course lot, and at the bay beaches near Ocean City.
Ramps and park lots are sometimes gravel, sometimes sand, sometimes at the end of a road that does not show up well on a map. When you call, tell us the name of the ramp or park if you know it, and the nearest cross street if you do not. If you are on a launch with a trailer blocking the lane, say so; getting you moving is the priority and we will work around the trailer.
The car is opened with an inflatable wedge to make a small gap at the top of the door and a long reach tool to press the unlock button. No metal touches the paint, the rubber, or the lock. On a truck or SUV with the keys visible on the seat, this is fast. On a car where the fob is in the trunk, opening the cabin usually gives access to a trunk release or a fold-down seat.
Golfers lock keys in cars at the course lot more than anyone would guess, usually because the fob went into the golf bag and the bag went into the trunk. We open the car and retrieve the fob, and if the fob was left in the cart barn we open the car so you can get home and deal with it. Carts themselves have simple ignition locks that we can also open or rekey for course operators.
A key that went swimming is not always lost. Sometimes it came back up and is sitting in your hand, dripping. What happens next depends on what it is.
Dry it off and use it. Brass and nickel-silver keys do not care about a dunk in the bayou. If it sat in salt water for days it may be pitted, and we can cut a clean copy from it before it gets worse.
The plastic head of a transponder key holds a chip that usually survives water. The remote fob is different: the buttons, battery contacts, and circuit board can corrode within hours of a salt-water dunk. Pull the battery, dry the fob, and do not press buttons until it is completely dry. If the fob stops working, we can replace and program a new one for many vehicles at your location. The mechanical blade inside the fob can be cut on site.
More cars and more smart home locks now use a phone as the key. When the phone goes in the water at a bay beach, you lose the car key and the house key together. For the car, we can often program a physical fob so you are not dependent on a phone. For a smart lock at home, there is nearly always a mechanical override key or a keypad code, and if you have neither, we open the door and reset the lock for you.
Waterfront homes along Poquito Bayou and Garnier Bayou have doors and locks that the street side never sees: a dock gate, a boathouse padlock, a lift control box with a lock on it, a pool gate, a ground-level door to a storage room full of fishing gear. These locks live in the harshest environment in Shalimar. Salt spray, direct sun, and constant humidity chew through plated hardware in a couple of years.
A padlock that will not open on a dock gate is the most common waterside call. We cut or pick it, and we replace it with a stainless or brass marine padlock that will still be working next summer. Same for gate latches and the small locks on lift controls and dock boxes.
People come in off the water, walk up the dock, and find the bayou-side door locked while the front door is around the house and the key is on the boat. We open the door you are standing at. If the bayou-side lock is corroded, we suggest coastal-rated hardware for that door specifically, because it is the one that fails.
Tell us the ramp, park, or dock you are at, and the make, model, and year of the vehicle. Tell us whether the key is inside the car, lost in the water, or in your hand and wet. Tell us if you have a trailer blocking a ramp lane, and whether the sun is going down; a dark ramp on the bayou is a different job than a bright one. If you have no phone because it went in the water too, borrow one and give us a call-back number that will still be reachable.
We verify that the car is yours before opening it, same as anywhere. Registration or insurance in the glove box counts once the door is open; before that, an ID with a matching name, or your name on the boat registration or trailer tag, will do. Nobody at a boat ramp has their paperwork in order and we are used to working with what you have.
Do not try to fish the key out of the water with a magnet unless the ring has something magnetic on it; most keys are brass and will not stick. Do not try a coat hanger on the car; modern door mechanisms do not respond to it and you will damage the weatherstrip. Get the boat secured, get the kids out of the sun, and stay where the truck can find you.
Our locksmith covers the Shalimar waterfront and the neighborhoods behind it: Poquito Bayou, Garnier Bayou, Cinco Bayou, the bay shore toward Ocean City, Lake Lorraine, Longwood, and the parks and launches reached from Old Ferry Road, Meigs Drive, and the Eglin Parkway and Hwy 85 corridor. We give an honest arrival estimate from wherever the truck actually is; weekend afternoon traffic on the parkway is real and we do not pretend otherwise.
Keys in the bayou, car locked at the ramp, fob that went swimming: call (850) 740-4734 and tell us where you are on the water.